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GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

For everyone who loves beautiful gardens

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The best snowdrop gardens to visit

PAST & PRESENT

Beautiful new gardens in historic settings

Pulmonaria for flowers now

February inspiration HOW TO prune clematis Must-have HOUSEPLANT kit Choose the right SECATEURS Explore the ROSE FAMILY

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CONTRIBUTORS

Rebecca Bernstein Rebecca is a garden photographer who has been shooting some of the country’s most beautiful gardens for more than ten years – including the garden at Bath’s American Museum on page 20.

Caroline Mardon Based in London, and previously a film stills photographer, Caroline now specialises in interiors and gardens and enjoys nothing more than admiring flowers through a lens.

Her images of Norney Wood are on page 44.

Welcome T

he gardens in this issue are a little bit different. They all bring together elements of old and new, and what better way to celebrate the New Year than by looking at gardens that seamlessly marry the best of the past with the exciting present? Take Lowther Castle in Cumbria, where Dan Pearson has masterminded a beautiful new garden around the remains of the castle’s walls and window arches, breathing new life into its intriguing ruins. In Sussex, Joe Perkins has turned the mostly blank canvas surrounding a 17th-century farmhouse into a colourful, flower-filled garden that’s contemporary yet enhances the period property. Likewise, Helen Elks-Smith has made a very modern home seem as if it was always meant to reside within the old walled garden in which it has been built. Meanwhile at The American Museum in Bath, a brand new planting scheme is getting into its stride around the 1820 manor house that’s home to exhibits documenting American history and culture since the time of the early settlers.

In the here and now, snowdrop season is upon us. We’re exploring the fantastic collection at Avon Bulbs and rounding up the best places to visit to see snowdrops in bloom, whether that’s the rarest specimen or a woodland carpeted in snowy white.

IMAGES NEIL HEPWORTH; RUPERT MARDON; BRIAN NORTH

CLARE FOGGETT, EDITOR

Zia Allaway Zia is an author, editor and journalist, who writes for magazines and newspapers. Her books include the RHS Practical Houseplant Book and RHS What Plant Where. She visits Norney Wood’s garden on page 44.

ON THE COVER Allium ‘Summer Drummer’ bursts through en masse planting at the American Museum’s new gardens in Bath.

Photographed by Rebecca Bernstein.

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FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 5

February 2020

CONTENTS

44 Gardens 20 American Museum Tucked into the gentle fold of a quintessentially English landscape, this new garden in Bath offers up a bold, muscular planting style in contrast.

28 Lowther Castle The atmospheric ruins of Cumbria’s Lowther Castle make a commanding setting for a new garden masterminded by designer Dan Pearson.

36 Winchester Garden Building a modern house within an old walled garden could have been a contrast too far, but Helen ElksSmith’s clever design unites new and old.

44 Norney Wood A romantic Arts & Crafts garden in the Surrey Hills, takes inspiration from plantswoman Gertrude Jekyll.

52 Sussex Farmhouse Joe Perkins on how he created a garden to complement a medieval and 17th century Sussex farmhouse.

6 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

58 Leadervale The secret behind this sumptuous planting of wildflowers and edibles in the Scottish Borders is the rich alluvial soil of its riverside setting.

Design 67 Design Duos Ruth Chivers explores the work of British garden designer John Brookes, and Thomas Church, the US landscape designer who inspired him.

101 Craftspeople Sitting Spiritually founder Martin Young on his hand-made range of swinging garden chairs.

Plants 75 Plant Focus Pulmonarias are often overlooked in favour of showier plants, but give these versatile, easy-going perennials a chance and they will soon win you over.

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81 Avon Bulbs At this specialist nursery, choice collectors’ snowdrops rub shoulders with garden varieties perfect for naturalising.

87 Snowdrop Gardens Places to see rare varieties, en masse planting and events.

93 Armchair Botany Jim Cable introduces the beautiful rose family, Rosaceae.

Regulars

IMAGES CAROLINE MARDON; GARDEN WORLD IMAGES; RAY COX; CLIVE NICHOLS; SHUTTERSTOCK

9 This Month Our guide to gardens to visit, places to go, things to do and nature to note.

17 Shopping Houseplant kit, plus garden accessories and homeware in ‘Classic Blue’.

99 Essential Tools Find the perfect garden secateurs for hands of every shape and size.

107 The Reviewer February’s literary digest, and a chat with Fiona Thackeray.

93

114 Last Word The replacement of Katherine Swift’s parterre restores her original vision.

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Offers 35 Subscribe & Save Subscribe to The English Garden and save money.

73 Home Insurance Specialist insurance quotes for readers of The English Garden.

79 Specialist Journeys A chance to join one of two exceptional garden tours.

FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 7

FEBRUARY

Gardens to Visit

Seek inspiration for your own garden by visiting one of Britain’s best

NGS GARDEN

Devonshire Mill Pocklington, Yorkshire

Brilliant BULBS Wave goodbye to winter as swathes of colourful bulbs illuminate a selection of wonderful gardens around the country this spring Evenley Wood Garden

Colby Woodland Garden

Coton Manor

Stroll through this 60-acre Northamptonshire garden (above) in early spring to enjoy swathes of snowdrops and an 800m stream of blue scillas, followed by magnolias, rhododendrons and azaleas. evenleywoodgarden.co.uk

Splashes of colour start to appear in early spring at this garden in Pembrokeshire.

Snowdrops cluster around the stream, daffodils nod in the meadow and a magnolia tree stands majestic. Tel: 01834 811885; nationaltrust.org.uk

Overall winner of our Nation’s Favourite Gardens competition, this special garden in Northamptonshire (below left) has snowdrops, crocuses and hellebores in February, with primulas, narcissus and chionodoxa in March. Tel: 01604 740219; cotonmanor.co.uk

WORDS PHOEBE JAYES PHOTOS JULIE SKELTON/NGS

Blicking Hall The gardens of this 55-acre estate in Norfolk feature an orangery, a temple, a walled garden, and some secret spaces. Head there in February to enjoy a multitude of snowdrops succeeded by camellias, daffodils and magnolia. Tel: 01263 738030; nationaltrust.org.uk

Great drifts of double snowdrops, striking hellebores and lush green ferns surround this historic Grade II listed water mill, which is located one mile south of Pocklington in East Yorkshire.

A mill stream, Pocklington Beck, flows through the two-acre gardens, which include orchards, woodland, herbaceous borders, a hen run, edible produce and greenhouses. Over the past 20 years, the owners have developed the garden on organic principles to encourage a range of wildlife.

Devonshire Mill, Canal Lane, Pocklington, York, East Riding of Yorkshire YO42 1NN. Opens Sunday 16 February, 11am to 4.30pm. Refreshments include home-made teas.

Admission: Adult: £4; Child: Free.

Myddelton House Gardens At this time of year the Alpine Meadow at Enfield’s Myddelton House, is carpeted with a mass of crocuses and snowdrops, shortly followed by daffodils and camassias.

Tel: 03000 030610; visitleevalley.org.uk

FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 9

FEBRUARY

Places to Go

Unmissable flower shows, plant fairs, courses and exhibitions to attend this month

Swap or SHOP Seedy Sunday 2 February, Brighton and Hove Head to Brighton Hove & Sussex Sixth Form College between 10.30am and 4pm to take part in one of Britain’s largest community seed swaps. If you don’t have any seeds to swap you can simply make a 50p donation at the seed table. This economical way of procuring new seeds helps to protect biodiversity and preserve rare varieties.

Speakers at the event include Kate Bradbury and Adrian Ely. Adult: £3, children free. seedysunday.org

ORCHID Extravaganza Kew Orchid Festival: Indonesia 8 February-8 March, London The 25th annual orchid festival at Kew takes Indonesia as its theme. Visitors can admire life-sized, bloom-festooned models of native Indonesian animals, an erupting volcano of orchids and an archway of carnivorous pitcher plants.

With over 4,000 species of orchid on display, the festival will showcase the country’s amazing biodiversity and Kew’s work to protect it. Standard entry fees apply, but tickets must be pre-booked. Tel: 020 8332 5655; kew.org

LOOKING AHEAD: Valentine’s DATES 4 February-19 April, London Tate Britain presents the first exhibition to focus on British baroque culture, with a section on baroque gardens. Tickets: £16; children £5. Tel: 020 7887 8888; tate.org.uk

Valentine’s Dinner at Bodiam Castle 13-15 February, Kent Treat your valentine to a glass

of fizz and a tour of the castle (right) followed by a threecourse, candlelit dinner by the river. Tickets: £48. Tel: 0344 2491895; nationaltrust.org.uk

Storytelling Evening 14 February, Somerset Hear stories and songs of love from storyteller Beth Webb and singer Dora Darling in the atmospheric Bishop’s Palace.

Tickets: £15. Tel: 01749 988111; bishopspalace.org.uk

10 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

Willowcraft Workshop 14 February, West Yorkshire Create woven willow hearts using the traditional craft of random weaving at the Palladian mansion of Nostell in Crofton. Beginners welcome.

Tickets: £65. Tel: 01924 863892; nationaltrust.org.uk

Valentine’s ring making 14, 15 & 16 February, London Learn how to create unique silver rings at Morden Hall

Park during a masterclass in traditional silversmithing and then celebrate with cake and prosecco afterwards. Tickets: £220 for two. Tel: 0344 2491895; nationaltrust.org.uk

WORDS PHOEBE JAYES IMAGES NATIONAL TRUST IMAGES/CHRIS LACEY

British Baroque: Power and Illusion

Heralding Spring

Saturday 25th January – Sunday 2nd February

Join us in the Garden for our celebration of the first harbingers of spring Open daily 11am – 4pm. Chelsea Physic Garden, 66 Royal Hospital Road, London SW3 4HS

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FEBRUARY

Things to Do Keep up to date in the garden with our monthly guide to key gardening tasks

Checklist Order seed potatoes and chit them on a light windowsill so they have fat green shoots in time for planting.

Carry out winter pruning of wisteria, when the whippy growths shortened during summer are further reduced to just two or three buds.

Some deciduous grasses can be pruned now, before their new growth appears. Cut back calamagrostis and deschampsia, but leave pennisetum intact until April – their old growth protects the crown.

These showy summer climbers need a prune this month to encourage the best display of flowers and to prevent a tangled mass of stems In February, it’s the clematis in Groups 2 and 3 that should be pruned, so you do need to know which clematis you have.

Once that’s established though, the pruning itself is easy.

Group 2 clematis are those large-flowered varieties that bloom in late May and June.

Well-known examples are ‘Nelly Moser’, claret ‘Niobe’ and purple ‘Jackmanii’. Group 3 clematis flower in late summer and include ‘Princess Diana’ and ‘Polish Spirit’ as well as Viticella types such as ‘Étoile Violette’. Regular pruning stops the plants developing into a tangled mess of stems that only flower at head-height.

Method 1 Group 2 clematis produce their flowers on short new shoots that grow from last year’s stems, so the aim here is to leave a framework of old stems in place. If you prune

12 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

too hard by removing all the old stems, there won’t be any flowers this year.

2 First take out any dead or weak growth completely. Then track down each individual stem and prune it back by about one third, cutting just above a healthy pair of buds.

3 Group 3 clematis flower on the current season’s growth so they can be pruned hard. Do it now and you’ll leave them plenty of time to produce those new, flowering shoots.

4 Cut all the stems of Group 3 clematis hard back. You can prune them to 15-45cm from ground level, but always cut just above a viable bud.

Add to snowdrop collections with new bulbs planted ‘in the green’ this month.

Plant lily bulbs in containers now to enjoy their scented flowers in summer. Use large pots and some soil-based compost for weight and stability.

IMAGES GAP/FREDERIC DIDILLON/JONATHAN BUCKLEY; SHUTTERSTOCK

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FEBRUARY

Nature to Note

Your monthly guide to encouraging and caring for garden wildlife

Bright & BEAUTIFUL Keep feeding this colourful garden visitor Appearance: The common chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs) is slightly larger than a robin. Adult males have striking orange-pink breasts and cheeks, a steely-blue cap and a chestnut-brown back. These colours are at their most intense during the spring mating season. Females’ plumage is a dull brown and they have yellow streaks on their wings.

Habitat: One of England’s most widespread and abundant birds, chaffinches can be seen across the British Isles all year round in gardens, parks, woodland, hedgerows and fields. They forage for food in trees and on the ground.

What you can do: To help ensure the chaffinch continues to thrive, keep your bird feeder filled up with seeds or scatter seeds across your garden. When it snows, clear a patch to allow chaffinches to hunt for insects.

Sweet violet The purple or sometimes white, blooms of low-growing plant sweet violet (Viola odorata) are one of the first wildflowers to bloom each spring and are widespread across the UK. In medieval chivalry tales, sweet violets represent constancy and love. In legend, it’s believed to be impossible to smell sweet violet more than once – a belief stemming from the fact that sweet violets contain the chemical ionine, which can deaden the smell receptors once it’s been sniffed.

14 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

Help wildlife this FEBRUARY Plan wildlife-friendly planting; provide nestboxes for birds; prune buddleia to boost growth; buy pots of spring flowers Plant trees, hedges and shrubs while the garden is still in a dormant winter state. These will grow to be invaluable sources of shelter and food for wildlife in your garden.

Put up nestboxes for birds in good time for the fast-approaching mating season this spring. Any existing nestboxes should have the old nest material cleared out and be thoroughly cleaned with boiling water to kill fleas and parasites.

Cut down buddleia at the end of the month to encourage strong, new, flowering shoots to form. This shrub has the common name of ‘butterfly bush’, but moths, bees and other insects are also attracted by its nectar-rich blooms.

Invest in pots of early spring flowers, such as crocus, primrose and aconite.

They’ll brighten up your garden and help feed the first emerging bumblebees.

WORDS PHOEBE JAYES IMAGES SHUTTERSTOCK

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Some of the best pots, stands and vases for showing off your houseplants, plus helpful kit

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1. Assorted pots in ceramic and recycled glass. Tel: 01993 845559; gardentrading.co.uk 2. Dutchbone Torn side table, £152.15. Tel: 01305 231231; cuckooland.com 3. Hanging flowerpot, £29.

Tel: 0208 1856960; cultfurniture.com 4. Seagrass ethnic print planter, £24.99. Tel: 0330 0584158; limelace.co.uk 5. Orchid snips, £9.99. Tel: 01142 338262; burgonandball.com 6. Corner plant stand,

£50. Tel: 01993 845559; gardentrading.co.uk 7. Lene Bjerre magna vase – short, £100. Tel: 0345 2572627; sweetpeaandwillow.com 8. Copper plant water mister, £6.50. Tel: 0344 5672400; thefarthing.co.uk 9. Standing flower pot, £53.

Tel: 020 8185 6960; cultfurniture.com 10. The Kew Gardener’s Guide to Growing House Plants, £12.99.

Tel: 020 8332 3123; shop.kew.org

WORDS PHOEBE JAYES. ALL PRICES CORRECT AT TIME OF GOING TO PRESS.

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FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 17

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1. Round bud vase, £8. Tel: 01993 845559; gardentrading.co.uk 2. Tenby barometer, £40.

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3. Blue ticking gardener’s tool bag, £29.95.

Tel: 03332 401228; sophieconran.com 4. Indigo mudcloth cushion no. 5, £78. Tel: 01315 552485; bohemiadesign.co.uk 5. Vintage ribbon in twilight,

£4.96. Tel: 07732 131135; cambridgeimprint.co.uk 6. Round blue planter on stand, £12.95. Tel: 01302 741000; melodymaison.co.uk 7. Vase landscape, €1,099. heinendelftsblauw.com 8. Acorn bird feeder with 200g nuts, £14. Tel: 0300 1232025; shop.nationaltrust.org.uk 9. Fiskardo drinks tray, £18. Tel: 01993 845559; gardentrading.co.uk 10. Orla Kiely enamel storage tin, £28.

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New planting in front of the museum’s grand facade includes perovskia, verbena and hydrangea, backed by pillars of yew.

20 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

The Special RELATIONSHIP Tucked into the gentle fold of a quintessentially English landscape, the new garden at Bath’s American Museum offers up a bold, muscular style of planting in contrast WORDS NOEL KINGSBURY PHOTOGRAPHS REBECCA BERNSTEIN

T

he view is pretty incredible, looking east from the outer limits of the city of Bath over a classically southern English valley landscape of lush green farmland and woods. An impressive setting is now accompanied by a unique new garden, as paths and areas of lawn sweep around large clumps of perennials and roses. It is a bolder, more emphatic, indeed more muscular, style of planting than we are perhaps used to.

The American Museum & Gardens at Claverton Manor has long been popular with visitors, and is an opportunity to appreciate a collection of art and artefacts that would otherwise prove difficult to see on this side of the Atlantic. The museum has now been joined by a truly American garden, thanks to its installation last year by Oehme, van Sweden Associates, a Washington DC-based landscape and garden design company. There are of 22 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

Above While beds here

are boldly planted, airy perovskia, Coreopsis verticillata and willowy grasses lend romance.

course American references in the garden, notably a recreation of a path dubbed ‘The Winding Way’, based on a path at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, which links the lower parts of the garden, and is wheelchair accessible. First and foremost though, this is an example of a planting style that could potentially work in any large garden or public park.

The late James van Sweden (1935-2013) and Wolfgang Oehme (1930-2011) revolutionised attitudes to planting gardens and landscapes on the US East Coast. Notoriously dominated by vast acres of lawn, with a few evergreen ‘foundation shrubs’ around the base of the house, American gardens and landscapes were usually pretty sterile places.

Oehme was born in eastern Germany and trained in Europe’s most rigorous tradition of horticulture; coming to the US in 1957, he worked for various landscape companies before crossing paths with van Sweden, an architect turned landscape designer.

Above A path winds

through large beds of free-form planting.

Below Rising from a light froth of Persicaria polymorpha, Allium ‘Summer Drummer’.

“The planting is popular with our visitors since it is easy to read – they love the sharp contrasts” Van Sweden loved the way Oehme used grasses and large perennials, a strong look that they promoted together from the late 1970s, going on to develop a highly successful practice.

The American Museum’s garden encapsulates the title of a book the two men wrote about their work in 1990 – Bold Romantic Gardens. ‘Bold’ because of the way their borders are composed of large groups of perennials, whose impact is very graphic; ‘romantic’ because of the emphasis on grasses, which for much of the year are constantly in motion, not to mention the sensory impact of a wide range of colours, textures and shapes.

“The planting is popular with our visitors since it is very easy to read. Especially for people who are not active gardeners – they like the sharp contrasts,” notes Andrew Cannell, the head gardener here, who was involved from the early stages and now manages the two-acre garden with “a very dedicated staff of three, plus six volunteers”. He points out how “corners are pinned down with a graphic plant such as Acanthus hungaricus ‘White Lips’ or Hylotelephium ‘Herbstfreude’. In contrast to Oehme, van Sweden’s classic work in the US, the FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 23

Above Proving that ‘en masse’ is best with bulbs, hundreds of alliums dance above catmint and Agastache ‘Blue Fortune’.

design here frequently puts two, three or more plants together in groups. Whereas Oehme became famous for the large blocks of Rudbeckia fulgida var. sullivantii ‘Goldsturm’ in his larger projects, here this most usefully long-flowering and compact darkeyed yellow daisy has the airy stems of light purple Verbena bonariensis and fireworks of grass Molinia caerulea ‘Windspiel’ coming through it.

Indeed it is the plant combinations here that will provide gardeners with ‘take away’ inspiration.

Zizia aurea, a prairie plant with yellow-green flowers, is intermingled with pale blue Amsonia orientalis 24 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

Zizia aurea, a cow-parsley family prairie plant with yellow-green flowers intermingled with pale blue Amsonia orientalis, is simply stunning in early summer. “Helenium ‘Rubinzwerg’ looks amazing with Persicaria amplexicaulis ‘Rosea’ especially in the early-morning light,” enthuses Andrew about a late-summer combination that brings together an upright, dark-red daisy and a bulky perennial with dozens of elegant narrow, slightly curving, pale pink flower spikes. What at first glance appear to be classic rose beds, turn out to be underplanted with low-growing perennials that form a tight groundhugging layer consisting of varieties of thyme and Mazus reptans, a small, blue-flowered plant.

Grasses have always been central to Oehme, van Sweden’s work; initially using a range of cultivars

Clockwise from top right

Head gardener Andrew Cannell in front of a big stand of Echinacea pallida; Persicaria polymorpha; a natural amphitheatre has been carved into the lawn to create a performance space; mauve flowers of Nepeta ‘Walkers Low’.

Left Yellow Verbascum

thapsus erupts from a sea of catmint, allium seedheads and clumps of helenium.

Below Maroon and white spires of Acanthus hungaricus ‘White Lips’ chime with alliums.

Allium ‘Summer Drummer’ makes a huge impression, growing to 1.8m derived mostly from Asian species, their recent work is more likely to feature new cultivars from the rich North American heritage of grasses. Two used here are Schizachyrium scoparium ‘Prairie Blues’ and ‘Wildwest’, both with good autumn colour, and growing to around 70cm in height: unlike many of the older forms of this species, they do not flop. “My favourite combination,” says Andrew “is this grass with Liatris spicata ‘Floristan White’ (narrow white spikes), Eryngium yuccifolium (white thimbles on upright stems) and Molinia caerulea subsp. caerulea ‘Dauerstrahl’, an upright form of the British native purple moor grass.

Eric Groft, principal at Oehme, van Sweden managed the design of the project, which took seven months from breaking ground to completion. He and senior designer Lili Herrera, who has special expertise in planting, came over in late August 2018 to oversee planting and stayed for a week. “We had 14,000 perennials to plant,” reports Andrew, “and then 31,000 bulbs, mostly daffodils, but also 3,000 Allium ‘Summer Drummer’ “which makes a huge impression”. It certainly does: this largest of ‘drumstick garlics’ grows to 1.8m. As seedheads, their massed ranks coming up through the perennials planted below make a powerful impact, especially from the lawn looking up the slope on which they are planted towards the museum.

26 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

The Oehme, van Sweden plan covered most, but not all, of the garden here. A few areas remained, which Andrew is now planting up himself in a similar style. “You can’t buy time,” he observes, but perennials establish fast, and these areas will help knit the garden into its surroundings, integrating the one and only example of an important contemporary American style into its very English surroundings. ■ American Museum & Gardens, Claverton Manor, Bath BA2 7BD. Open until 22 December 2019, and then from March 2020. Tel: 01225 460503; americanmuseum.org

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FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 27

orti ed SPIRIT

The atmospheric ruins of Cumbria’s Lowther Castle make a commanding setting for a new garden masterminded by designer Dan Pearson WORDS & PHOTOGRAPHS CAROLE DRAKE

28 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

Low blocks of yew frame groups of herbaceous perennials that include filipendula, salvia and veronicastrum.

Above Upstanding clumps of Lythrum salicaria ‘Zigeunerblut’ and burnished Molinia ‘Karl Foerster’.

Left Veronicastrum virginicum ‘Spring Dew’.

I

n the late 18th century, the gardens and setting of Lowther Castle in Cumbria were compared to the great Summer Palace in Beijing for their beauty. By the time head gardener Martin Ogle was growing up in nearby Penrith in the 1980s, the castle was known as ‘the spooky ruin on the hill’, abandoned, overgrown and rather menacing. But in recent years, Lowther’s 130 acres have undergone a remarkable renaissance and bold new gardens by Dan Pearson now weave in and out of the castle ruins and the evocative traces of 17th and 19th century gardens that surround it.

It was William, 1st Earl of Lonsdale, who, in 1806 commissioned Robert Smirke to design a new

30 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

building on the site of what had been home to the Lowther family since 1150. Completed in 1812, the castellated Gothic Revival house boasted a room for every day of the year beneath a roofscape of turrets, towers and finials. Generations have made their mark here – though none more so than Hugh, 5th Earl of Lonsdale, who spent vast amounts on the latest fashions. Thomas Mawson created several gardens for him, including the Rock, Japanese, Iris and Sweet Scented gardens. Nicknamed ‘The Yellow Earl’ for his love of the colour, Hugh squandered the family fortune and abandoned the castle for good in 1935; it was never occupied again and its contents were sold at auction in 1947.

During World War II, an army tank unit laid large areas of concrete over the castle lawns, and in the post-war period thousands of Sitka spruce were planted across the garden. Struggling to pay massive death duties, but reluctant to demolish the house because of its place in the landscape, the 7th Earl, James Lowther, took off its roof in 1957, leaving a shell of turrets and towers to grace the skyline. The final insult came when chicken sheds and pig-pens were installed right up to the castle walls.

Current owner Jim Lowther, younger son of the 7th Earl, grew up nearby and knew the castle and

Shade-loving plants such as ferns and epimediums thrive in the light that filters through arched windows of the ruins.

FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 31

32 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

Right Acanthus mollis ‘Rue Ledan’ spires with alchemilla and erigeron nestling at their feet.

Below The colours of the parterre reflect those of the wildflowers in the meadow beyond.

grounds as a childhood playground. He formed the Lowther Castle and Gardens Trust in 2007 and invited designer Dan Pearson to visit. Pearson responded to its “strong and potent atmosphere and amazing feeling of history” and made a plan to develop the garden over a 30 to 50 year period. Long inspired by Ninfa in Italy, where ancient buildings are overwhelmed by roses and wisteria, and with his own experience of weaving a garden between ruins at Torrecchia Vecchia near Rome, in ‘a fragile equilibrium between wilderness and artifice’, Pearson was the perfect choice for Lowther, where horticultural history had been colonised by nature.

Historic landscape consultant Dominic Cole was brought in to restore the infrastructure of the 17th-century formal garden that lay beneath concrete and conifers. The vast sloping south lawns were restored, and staff and volunteers began to peel back decades of weeds blanketing the Victorian and Edwardian gardens. Martin Ogle, who became

head gardener in 2013, has approached the project’s massive scale with enthusiasm, contributing in no small part to its success. He heads a team of three full-time gardeners, one part-time gardener, an apprentice and volunteers.

In 2014 work started on the Parterre Tapestry Garden, laid rug-like below the Castle’s south elevation. Within low walls of yew and Panicum virgatum ‘Rehbraun’, purple Salvia pratensis ‘Indigo’, pink Lythrum salicaria ‘Zigeunerblut’, and chartreuse daylily Hemerocallis ‘Hyperion’ echo the colours of the wildflowers in the meadows flanking the central lawn, including purple knapweed, deep-pink rosebay willowherb and the acid-yellow of lady’s bedstraw. Dark, dusky plants reflect the Gothic mood of the ruin, such as tall Actaea simplex ‘James Compton’ with its smokypurple foliage and cobra-like flower spikes, and Sanguisorba ‘Tanna’ with dark plum flowerheads in swarms above wiry stems. Martin and his team play referee in these beds, reducing “the brutes like Cephalaria gigantea and Cirsium rivulare so the smaller, more delicate plants like Geranium ‘Tiny Monster’ don’t get squeezed out altogether”.

Architectural plants, such as spiny Acanthus mollis (Latifolius Group) ‘Rue Ledan’ and silvery Scotch thistle Onopordum acanthium sprout from the base of the castle wall, softened by low-growing self-seeders like little pink-and-white daisy Erigeron karvinskianus and frothy Alchemilla mollis. Inside, the Garden in the Ruins plays a delicate game with history: beautiful ornamental plants colonise the castle shell in the way ‘weeds’ did in the past. “We maintain this area naturalistically,” says Martin, “letting the plants do their own thing. Dan wants this area to be gardened with a light touch, as if the plants are about to take over.” Vitis cognetiae and FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 33

Below Ferns and Akebia longeracemosa creepers such as akebia scale the walls, draping look as if they have themselves across blank always been there, window openings like colonising ruined walls. torn curtains; planting is dense to deter weed growth and the garden team try not to walk into the beds at all.

Sitting between the Lake District and the North Pennines at a height of 200m above sea level, the biggest gardening challenge here is the weather: high winds that swirl through the castle, rainfall that averages 930mm per year and winter temperatures that can drop to -15°C. “We’ve lost some mature trees and shrubs because of the force of the wind inside the ruin,” says Martin, “so now we plant smaller specimens. Outside it’s less of a problem because of the thick shelter belt on the western side.”

Lowther was once renowned for its rose garden, and Dan Pearson’s reiteration will be completed this winter with thousands of David Austin’s English roses. Varieties chosen include yellow ‘Molineux’, pink ‘Wisley’ and white ‘Kew Gardens’. Colour will graduate from whites around the central water feature to warm yellows and golds on the garden’s edge through petal-shaped beds planted with 6,000 white-flowered herbaceous perennials. On grey days this luminous layer of white flowers will act like a reflector, bouncing light up to the roses above.

Dan Pearson has been commissioned to rejuvenate the Rock Garden next. Pools of spring-flowering plants including epimediums, pulmonarias and small bulbs will be planted to create the feel of a spring woodland garden, and conifers will be replaced with special trees such as katsura and stewartia. Roused gently from her bramble-clad slumber, this most fascinating of gardens is a compelling collaboration between past and present, artifice and nature. ■

Lowther Castle, Lowther, Penrith, Cumbria CA10 2HH; open all year except Christmas Day; lowthercastle.org

34 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

Grown FREE Lowther’s perennials are cultivated varieties with a touch of the wild about them

FILIPENDULA RUBRA ‘VENUSTA’

HEMEROCALLIS ‘HYPERION’

Rose-pink flowers and vinelike leaves on a perennial that thrives in moist soil.

This daylily’s small, dainty flowers aren’t out of place in a naturalistic scheme.

ACANTHUS MOLLIS ‘RUE LEDAN’

CIRSIUM RIVULARE ‘ATROPURPUREUM’

A white and green version of this bristly perennial. Spikes can reach at least 1.2m tall.

Flowering from June to September, this handsome thistle is highly sought after.

POTENTILLA ‘MISS WILLMOTT’

SALVIA PRATENSIS ‘INDIGO’

Pink flowers with a crimson eye above a mound of nicely groundcovering foliage.

Blue-purple flowers line up on upright airy spires; the foliage is aromatic too.

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Dan Brill’s design for a single-storey house with staggered wings created exciting spaces for terraces and planting.

36 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

Walls That UNITE

Building a very modern house within an old walled garden could have been a contrast too far, but Helen Elks-Smith’s garden design brings new and old together WORDS CLARE FOGGETT PHOTOGRAPHS RICHARD BLOOM

Above Softly weathered

walls enclose a paredback planting scheme of grasses and perennials that tone with the bricks.

T

he danger of building a sleek, modern home within an old, brick-walled garden is that, as garden designer Helen Elks-Smith points out, it could have looked as if “an alien had landed”. Never fear: her clever planting and layout have skilfully avoided any uncomfortable juxtaposition, instead successfully marrying the contemporary, architect-designed building with the surrounding, time-weathered walls.

This old walled garden, at the Winchester end of the South Downs, had previously been attached to a nearby manor house, but the land was sold off in

38 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

the 1960s, at which point a one-storey house was built on the half acre of ground inside its walls. “It must have had quite a funky architect for the time, since they designed a single-storey, flat-roof house,” says Helen. When they bought it, her clients asked architect Dan Brill to re-imagine and extend the 1960s building, and the result is the dark-stained, western cedar-clad home you see today.

The clients brought Helen in at quite an early stage during 2012 – the house was still being renovated and wasn’t yet habitable, while the garden she set about surveying featured “a pile of rubble almost as tall as the house and a few junipers. The swimming

pool was in, but with a different surround, and the rest of it was just rubble and mud.” Yet even enclosing an unpromising looking building site, those enviable walls stood out.

“The walls are just beautiful,” Helen says.

“A lot of the bricks around Winchester are quite reddy-orange, those are the flavours coming up out of the ground: lovely warm colours. It’s a really contemporary house sitting within these beautiful old walls, so the garden had to pull the two together.” The answer was a muted palette of plants – including lots of grasses – that perfectly

Top Small decks and

planting outside each window provide a sense of privacy and stop the house feeling exposed.

Above Thrusting upwards, the glaucous stems of Euphorbia characias ‘Humpty Dumpty’.

echoes the umber and sienna tones of the bricks to link the house and its boundary together. Maroon-flushed Miscanthus sinensis ‘Starlight’, golden Stipa gigantea and great big fountains of rusty-toned Anemanthele lessoniana join a host of other grasses and a cast of easy-care perennials such as phlomis, blue-grey Santolina chamaecyparissus and stonecrop Hylotelephium ‘Matrona’ to meld house and garden. “The colour palette for all the planting comes from those walls,” Helen says.

Equally inspiring however, was the unusual design of the house, which comprises three parallel but staggered rectangular blocks: “There’s the left entrance wing, the middle reception wing and, on the right eastern side, there are all the bedrooms,” Helen explains. Because the blocks are staggered, there are interesting voids between their solid masses, and rather than having flat facades, the floor-toceiling windows and doors are recessed into deep overhangs. “Because of what Dan had done with the house, the landscape and house are constantly FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 39

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pushing and pulling against each other, which makes it very interesting,” Helen says.

“But the problem with those overhangs is that they create quite a bit of shadow – it keeps the windows cool, but it also reduces the light.

The master bedroom in particular was quite dark, its window set in a deep overhang as well as being close to the largest trees, but Helen found a solution: “I used water here, to bounce light back into the room,” she explains. The water serves another purpose too: “The swimming pool is a social space next to the bedrooms, and you have to walk around the master bedroom to get from there to the terrace outside the dining room,” she notes. “That layout was fixed, so the garden design had to resolve the conflict between public and private spaces. I gave each bedroom its own mini garden so if people are in the pool there’s a degree of separation; they’re not staring straight into a bedroom.”

Now, the clients’ two boys’ rooms have small decks outside their windows, while the main bedroom has that rectangle of water, plus a fringe of planting: Darmera peltata ‘Nana’, Ligularia ‘Desdemona’ and golden carex. “I narrowed the paths here to speed people along,” Helen adds. “It works – people don’t linger; they see the open area and walk a bit quicker.” At the front of the house, a row of Stipa gigantea solves a similar problem, stopping visitors seeing directly into the house as they walk up the path. “If we’d planted hedges it would have created a different sense of space and negatively impacted light – the Stipa gigantea works so well, just to give you that degree of separation.”

The swimming pool itself sits at a higher level than the house. “There were some quite interesting

Above, from left Pink and burgundy Sedum ‘Matrona’; Acanthus spinosus; Hakonechloa macra spills onto the iroko decking.

Left Equisetum hyemale fringes the narrow strip of water that edges the terrace between two of the house’s wings.

FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 41

level changes that needed dealing with,” says Helen, but one of the advantages of its elevated position, as well as the building being only one-storey high, is that it receives lots of light – as does the rest of the garden, even on the north side of the house. A carefully graded gravel slope deals with the incline up to the pool, now housed in an iroko deck. Just three materials were used throughout the garden: the iroko timber, a Scottish pebble gravel that tones well with the brick walls, and black basalt for all the paving, which matches the basalt flooring inside the house down to the pattern in which it was cut.

“I think gravel surfaces are a really good and practical choice, when you use a gravel stabilisation system,” Helen says, referring to those honeycomblike sheets that can be laid beneath the gravel to stop it migrating and to create a firm surface. “They are great because you can push wheelbarrows over gravel paths and surfaces, or stand on them in heels, whatever you happen to do your gardening in!”

Gravel is often seen as a cheaper choice, she adds, but here, using it was more about aesthetics – paving would have been too strong and formal, plus it dealt more easily with issues of water run-off.

Not so many years later the garden looks as settled and established as the historic walls around it.

“Grasses look so good so quickly,” Helen says. They were all selected for a long season of interest, and 42 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

Top At the garden’s

highest point, the swimming pool receives lots of light – perfect conditions for grasses and silvery santolina.

Above Rustling phlomis seedheads, with rusty anemanthele behind.

the planting needs relatively little maintenance other than the deciduous grasses and herbaceous perennials being cut back to the ground in spring, and a little pruning to keep shrubs in shape.

“When you look at the house, nothing is too small and nothing’s too big, it’s a well thought out, intelligent piece of design, and it was great working with those interesting outside spaces – that push-pull between the inside of the house and where the house meets the garden,” Helen says. Last year, the garden won Helen a Society of Garden Designer’s award for the best medium residential garden. By that point, Dan Brill, the architect, had moved back to the United States, his home country, so Helen was thrilled to be able to send him the news of her design’s win. It’s no doubt a sleekly designed home, but the garden around it is equally accomplished – without it, the house could easily have been that recently landed alien, but together, they’re a truly cohesive whole. ■

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Just ten years old but inspired by the work of Gertrude Jekyll and Edwin Lutyens, Norney Wood’s garden looks older than its years.

FINE ARTS Norney Wood, Jean and Richard Thompson’s Arts & Crafts garden in the Surrey Hills, takes inspiration from plantswoman Gertrude Jekyll and her romantic style of planting WORDS ZIA ALLAWAY PHOTOGRAPHS CAROLINE MARDON

S

urrounded by mature woodland deep in the Surrey hills, the house and gardens at Norney Wood is enveloped in a tangle of leafy canopies. The shady driveway opens up to reveal an Edwardian house fringed with elegant topiary, hydrangeas and Japanese maple – a prelude to the hidden treasures that lie beyond.

The owners, Jean and Richard Thompson, bought the 20-acre property in 2006 with the idea of transforming the grounds into a garden that could be enjoyed both as a private space and an oasis for the local community to visit and share in their love of plants and nature. The task was not for the faint-hearted, however, since both house and garden needed extensive work. “There wasn’t a single flowering plant when we arrived,” explains Jean. “Our first call was to garden designers Acres Wild, who had designed the small, third-of-an-acre garden at our previous house and who we knew would help us create the garden we envisaged.” The couple worked with them to plan a series of interconnected gardens that transition into the natural woodland while reflecting the heritage of the Edwardian house, with contemporary elements introducing a modern twist.

The blank canvas offered opportunities as well as challenges. The Thompsons wanted a low-emissions home, which they achieved by installing 2.4 kilometres of underground energy-collecting pipework, before the new garden was created. This system now provides all the heating and hot water for the house. “The garden looked like a bomb site while the pipes were being installed, but the end result was definitely worth it,” says Richard. “We also took this opportunity to remove the chestnut trees that were too close to the house, along with some tall larches, as well as fencing and rabbit-proofing the entire garden. An irrigation system for the garden and pond was installed, too – it FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 45

Above In 2006 when the

Thompsons moved in, the Edwardian house needed extensive work, while the garden was a completely blank canvas.

captures rainwater from the house roofs in two large underground tanks and when these run dry, water is pumped up from an 80-metre-deep borehole.”

Jean’s love of English country garden style and the work of plantswoman Gertrude Jekyll and architect Edwin Lutyens was what inspired her garden plans.

Elements described in Jekyll’s 1918 book, Garden Ornament, such as the canal, garden house, and loggias, are in evidence at Norney Wood, offering a rich source of ideas for visitors. “We also asked Acres Wild to create beautiful views from the main rooms of the house – most are double or triple aspect, so we had to get the sight lines right,” adds Jean. She says she’s indebted to her late mother Anita, who not only instilled in her a passion for gardening, but also put hundreds of plants in the ground at Norney Wood, as well as helping to maintain the gardens.

A journey through the gardens begins in the courtyard garden to the west. Edged with

46 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

rhododendrons and featuring a small lily pool, it links the front and back gardens. From here, the Shade Walk and Pleached Lime Walk stretch before you, the former taking the visitor along a gravel path lined with leafy frills of Hosta ‘Francee’ and Geranium x oxonianum, together with clipped box.

The Pleached Lime Walk, by contrast, offers a carpet of lawn underfoot, drawing you through trees on stilts, their canopies clipped at shoulder height into a block of foliage, with a froth of geraniums below.

A screen of blowsy pink Rosa ‘Gentle Hermione’ and ‘Tea Clipper’ separates the Pleached Lime Walk from the main event at the back of the house.

Walking along the terrace, made from reclaimed stone and Bargate setts, light fills the garden, as shady, tree-lined spaces give way to an expansive view over a large lawn, flanked by roses, lavender and clouds of nepeta. A hedge and the Thunder House punctuate the end of this stunning space.

Clockwise from above

An apt choice given the inspiration she has provided, Rosa ‘Gertrude Jekyll’ sits ahead of the nepeta lined path; Jean and Richard Thompson; the wild pond features flag and Siberian irises, gunnera and candelabra primula; an elegant raceme of perfumed Syringa pubescens.

The Thunder House is a copy of a structure of the same name designed by Lutyens at Jekyll’s home at Munstead Wood in Surrey, just a few miles from Norney Wood. It divides the upper and lower gardens here and offers a peek through into the Tranquility Garden below. Inside, Jean and Richard pay homage to Jekyll and the local geology with a floor motif inspired by a design in the Thunder House at Munstead Wood. “The green sand in this area dates back to the early Cretaceous period. It’s an accumulation of marine deposits and, over time, it formed a black stone called ‘ironstone’ which Jekyll used in many of her paving and wall designs.

Every shovelful of our soil brings up ironstone and, just as Gertrude did, we’ve laid it on its edge to create patterns through the garden,” says Richard.

Descending the wide steps from the Terrace Garden, birdsong is joined by the sound of water as it races over a blade waterfall into a reflective canal.

Aptly named the Tranquility Garden, the still water in this area has a meditative effect, its glassy surface occasionally broken by a vibrant dragonfly. Japanese water iris (Iris laevigata), pontederia and other

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Pastel PALETTE Choosing flowers in soft hues helps conjure an Edwardian Arts & Crafts atmosphere

IRIS ‘VOLTIGEUR’

IRIS ‘JANE PHILLIPS’

A 1930s variety introduced

by Ferdinand Cayeux, this iris has rosy purple standards and deep maroon falls.

Ever popular for its scented, baby blue-lilac blooms, this bearded iris, with greyish foliage, is easy to find.

GERANIUM ‘ROZANNE’

ROSA ‘GENTLE HERMIONE’

Let this lax, hardy geranium thread its way through borders to cover the ground.

Myrrh scented flowers on a David Austin-bred shrub rose with arching stems.

ROSA ‘GERTRUDE JEKYLL’

ZANTEDESCHIA ‘CROWBOROUGH’

This absolute classic with its magenta-pink flowers is often one of the earliest to bloom.

Spathes of pure white and arrow-shaped leaves on this moisture-loving perennial.

aquatic marginals soften the edges of the canal, while triffid metal sculptures – bought from Fire and Iron gallery – add a contemporary note.

A simple timber-framed loggia meanwhile, offers a resting place to contemplate the peaceful scene.

An opening in the hedge takes you through to the Herbaceous Walk, packed with perennials and small shrubs jostling for attention. Shade-loving astrantias and hostas shelter beneath flamboyant peonies and towering giant scabious (Cephalaria gigantea) before the mood changes, as the path leads into woodland.

Tucked away at the bottom of the garden is yet another surprise. The couple have cleared a space among the trees for a School Garden, used by pupils of St Mary’s, the local infants school. The children go orienteering in the woods and a treehouse built around a magnificent oak tree provides a magical outdoor classroom, while the garden itself offers an area for them to grow their own food. The children also venture down to the pond to discover the hidden secrets of the aquatic world. One of the last areas to be completed, Jean and Richard love this wildlife sanctuary, and spend summer evenings here relaxing on the deck, watching the birds and insects visit the water and nectar-rich wildflowers.

Visitors can then take the route back up towards the house, which brings them into the East Loggia garden and courtyard. Looking out over the tennis court, which is cleverly masked from the house by a level change and a tall hedge, the planting in this area contrasts with the Above Water recurs as a soft pastel colours found feature throughout the elsewhere in the garden. gardens, either splashing “We wanted a change between ponds or of pace at this point, offering calm tranquility.

FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 49

Left Metal sculptures

with more tropical-style planting and fiery colours,” says Jean. Arranged around a circular bed, sizzling orange-red Hemerocallis ‘Chicago Fire’, spiky phormiums, arum lilies (Zantedeschia aethiopica ‘Crowborough’) and a chusan palm (Trachycarpus fortunei) lend an exotic look to this hidden space.

The penultimate stop on the tour takes you up a flight of steps bordered by Geranium ‘Rozanne’ and balls of hebe to the new courtyard, created in 2016 when the couple had an extension built and added a timber-framed loggia for outdoor entertaining.

Jekyll and Lutyens were leading lights in the Arts & Crafts movement of the early 20th century, which revered traditional craftsmanship, and the Thompsons’ stylish loggia, with a roof handcarved by Andy Hibberd featuring an inscription of Jekyll’s motto “The love of gardening is a seed once sown that never dies”, revives these skills for their 21st-century design. In June, the beds surrounding the loggia are a jewel box of colour, with Jean’s favourite bearded irises taking centre stage.

There is just one more area to see before visitors leave and that is the cutting garden to the east. Here, Jean grows dahlias in regimental rows, like crops, to provide flowers for the house and her friends.

She leaves the dahlias in situ over winter, where the tubers are kept snug beneath a deep mulch.

Now in its tenth year, Jean says the garden has settled into the landscape and the couple open it to the public in June, when the roses are at their best. Although the Thompsons have some help in maintaining it with their gardener, Christian, they enjoy getting their hands dirty, and the garden is very much a labour of love. ■ Norney Wood, Shackleford, Surrey GU8 6AY. Opens for the National Garden Scheme and the local school on 7 June 2020 from 10.30am to 5pm.

Tel: 01483 425633; norneywood.co.uk 50 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

add a contemporary note to the Arts & Crafts style buildings in the Tranquility Garden.

Below Deep pink, starry flowers smother pretty shrub Deutzia x hybrida ‘Strawberry Fields’.

Good HOUSEKEEPING Gardening tips from Jean Thompson on keeping roses, water features and borders looking smart To prevent aphids attacking roses and dahlias without using chemicals, check plants every day or two and, if you aren’t too squeamish, run your fingers over the stems (you could wear rubber gloves) to squash them.

Blanket weed in the formal ponds can be unsightly. The best treatment we have found is ‘Clover Leaf Blanket Answer’

(blanketanswer.com) which is completely safe for plants and wildlife. It works by turning the water milky, thereby reducing the light level in the pond, which kills the blanket weed. The water clears and the dead blanket weed sinks to the bottom.

Our mantra for weeds is ‘weed before they seed’ – dig their roots out and hoe annuals regularly.

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FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 51

52 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

A previously empty expanse of lawn has been transformed with wide beds that link the farmhouse and garden.

Time & PLACE

Garden designer Joe Perkins explains how he set about creating a garden to complement a beautiful medieval and 17th century Sussex farmhouse WORDS JOE PERKINS PHOTOGRAPHS ANNAĂ?CK GUITTENY

Above Soft shades of purple from Nepeta racemosa ‘Walkers Low’, Geranium ‘Rozanne’ and silvery Stachys byzantina in new, rectangular borders.

A

n early summer paradise of soft but structured planting surrounds this uniquely beautiful farmhouse hidden away in the depths of the Sussex countryside. When I first visited on a sunny but cold early spring morning it was immediately apparent that this was a special place. Just the drive in was wonderful – a mile-long cruise through arable farmland, with woods and single stately oaks dotted across the landscape.

Approaching the house, the drive became lined with lime trees (Tilia cordata) in a broad sweeping avenue, with low and mid-height grass verges to either side. It was clear that the owners of this

54 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

17th-century farmhouse (with medieval origins) were proud of the spectacular setting, and that someone at some point had made a particular effort to make the approach to the house just as memorable.

I grew up in sleepy countryside just outside Oxford, and enjoyed a seemingly non-existent boundary between our garden and the farmland beyond, so the setting and character of this house brought back happy memories for me. When I was greeted enthusiastically by the owner and her two dogs, it was clear she shared the same passion for a garden that is part of a wider rural landscape.

The beauty of the house, the approach and the landscape were, however, soon overshadowed by the

Top A large pond with a

mature weeping willow were already established features in the garden.

Above One third of the paving around the pool was lifted and replaced with plants.

Left The garden’s designer, Joe Perkins.

scene of near-desolation we found ourselves looking at through the all-important kitchen window. She had only recently moved in, and was desperate to get on with ‘dealing’ with the garden, which, she freely admitted, was uninspiring and uninviting; she just didn’t quite know where to start.

As we talked, we studied the view: a huge expanse of lawn, 300m long and as wide as the house, filling the window, with just a few large trees and a native hedge marking the transition back to farmland in the distance. To the west, an enormous leylandii hedge, over 6m tall and almost as wide, blocked a just-asenormous old barn, but it towered over the lawn, dwarfing anything that dared grow alongside it.

FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 55

The house is beautiful. Soft red brick, tile-hung gables and roofs covered with mellow clay tiles – a Sussex farmhouse, typical in the best possible way.

But the existing garden did very little to embrace the character of the house or its setting and, in fact, was a space in which one felt out of place, even uncomfortable. We agreed as we walked around that there was no sense of place in the garden and standing out in the middle of that expanse of lawn we felt very exposed.

56 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

Above Salvia ‘Mainacht’

and Lychnis coronaria ‘Alba’ are repeated across the beds to give them a structured look.

There were some key features – a large pond with quintessential weeping willow, some areas of wildflower where the lawn drew closer to the boundary hedge, and a walled outdoor swimming pool, although this was an unimaginative space with no planting and a sea of stone paving. These of course had to be integrated into the new design, as did the overpowering hedge – at least for now. There was mention of the huge concrete barn behind it becoming a thing of the past, at some point in the future, but this was such an undertaking that the garden would need to be adaptable and incorporate the ‘green giant’ for the time being.

There was fairly free rein on the brief, in respect to layout and design at least, and maintenance – that all important question to be asked before embarking on any new design – was happily covered by a full-time gardener who had been looking after the property for years and was hugely enthusiastic and inquisitive about the current owners’ new plans. On the other hand, the planting was, to some extent, less free. There were Pinterest boards and colour schemes, David Austin rose catalogues – this was an owner who was good with plants, and knew the essence of what she wanted. There was also a good measure of openness to other ideas and plant suggestions, and it became a very enjoyable collaboration when it came to finalising plant lists, which is really how it should be, and the best possible outcome for the long-term development of the garden. There were some red lines: roses had to feature, and yellow was declared out of bounds, although a few varieties of euphorbia were sneaked in on account of their excellent foliage and tough character.

The scheme immediately around the house quickly took shape as a series of rectangular beds enclosing a simple Yorkstone terrace. These beds are lined up with key views both from various windows of the house and with vistas across the width of the house, particularly down to the pond with the willow tree. This structure or layout has the effect of pausing the transition from the house and terrace to the wider garden, bringing the immediate lawn area down to a smaller scale and

giving both direction and intimacy to the space. The planting here is planned for a predominately late spring and early-summer explosion, with Salvia x sylvestris ‘Mainacht’, Stachys byzantina, Geranium ‘Rozanne’, various bearded iris including ‘Jane Phillips’ and ‘Sable’ and Nepeta racemosa ‘Walker’s Low’. Papaver ‘Patty’s Plum’ helps to bring the colouring across to the pink roses ‘Heritage’ and ‘Queen of Sweden’. There is white too, with Rosa ‘Winchester Cathedral’ and Delphinium ‘Guardian White’, and the season is extended with lavender and yew topiary cushions nestled in among the perennials. Then there are the bulbs, tulips first, followed by Allium hollandicum ‘Purple Sensation’.

The key to getting the structured look with what are essentially a collection of quite loose and fluffy perennials is simplicity and repetition. The borders mirror each other, and although there is variation to add interest, for the most part they tie together visually to create a fairly seamless whole.

As the garden opens out from the house, the planting changes in its season of interest. Two broad sweeping borders map out the fluid curves of the new lawn and are generously planted with grasses (deschampsia species) and late-flowering perennials

Clockwise from above

Further away from the house, wildflowers are a tangible link with the countryside beyond; bright pink, black-eyed flowers of Geranium psilostemon; velvety Stachys byzantina; delphiniums in regal purple add height – try ‘Purple Passion’ for a similar effect.

such as Monarda ‘Croftway Pink’ and Knautia macedonica, with multi stemmed Amelanchier lamarckii framing the views towards the wildflower meadow and countryside beyond. An oak pergola is positioned to create a superb long vista from the kitchen window, framed with summer-flowering climbing roses and late-flowering clematis varieties.

When the hedge is removed and replaced with a smaller boundary of hornbeam, this feature will really come alive. Further out and the grasses give way to shrubs for autumn and winter interest, such as Cornus kesselringii and C. ‘Midwinter Fire’, with bigger trees such as the cut leafed alder Alnus laciniata, and the tulip tree, Liriodendron tulipifera.

The swimming pool garden has been ‘greened up’, losing around 30 per cent of its previously paved surface and benefitting from plantings of olives, lavender and rosemary, as well as the bright Geranium psilostemon and self-clinging Hydrangea petiolaris which will soften the walls given time.

The clients are, it’s safe to say, delighted with the whole scheme. In fact, there has been mild complaint that it is hard to get anything else done due to feeling compelled to sit and admire the views. But that’s a measure of a successful collaboration. ■ FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 57

58 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

Dark MATERIALS

The secret behind the sumptuous plantings of wildflowers and edibles at Leadervale House in the Scottish Borders is the rich alluvial soil of its riverside setting WORDS ANTOINETTE GALBRAITH PHOTOGRAPHS RAY COX

A grid of meadow annuals give this old walled garden a new, contemporary feel.

T

wenty-two years ago when Hew and Joanna Blair bought Leadervale House, their Georgian villa overlooking the Leader Valley in Berwickshire, Hew had no intention of gardening the one-acre walled garden at the foot of the slope by the River Leader. Previously used for schooling horses and grazing sheep, its walls were crumbling and the old, ivy-covered coach house, the most convenient point of entry to the garden, was totally derelict. Much better, thought Hew, to plant a garden close to the house.

At first, this seemed like the obvious answer.

Leadervale with its graceful stone steps and elegant Ionic portico creates a striking setting. It was built in 1780 by Sir James Wright, the last Royal Governor of the state of Georgia, in the parkland of the neighbouring mansion, Carolside, which was built by his brother. Yet while roses, shrubs and ornamental trees flourished around the house, the Blairs found the vegetable garden “unsatisfactory”.

Hew describes himself as “not an expert, more of a tree person”, but both he and Joanna had previously gardened in Oxfordshire. When they moved back north – they both grew up in the 60 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

Above The garden’s

picturesque setting is the Leader Valley, with a wooded hillside sloping down to the river.

Borders – he was keen to give vegetables a go. After a few years, Joanna suggested fencing off a portion of the walled garden so he could experiment with crops. “The garden just took off from there,” says Hew. The next year the south-facing half of the walled garden was fenced off and the first part of a classic, four-bed, box-edged design, divided by wide grass paths, was laid out, with the box grown from cuttings in nursery beds. Old photos later revealed Hew’s classical cruciform design was similar to the original late 18th century layout.

Every year since then, with the part-time help of local gardener Alec, a new project has been undertaken. “We both enjoy a project,” admits Hew. “Alec is brilliant at executing them and the success of the garden owes much to his input.” Repairing the walls was a major project carried out in 2008.

“Most of the mortar had turned to dust and 80 per cent needed to be rebuilt with the original Wynn stone,” Hew explains. “The budget ran out half way around, so I had to bite the bullet and finish the job.” This included topping the walls with coping stones slanted outwards. That autumn, ‘Opal’, ‘Merryweather’ and ‘Marjorie’s Seedling’ plums, ‘Blenheim Orange’ and ‘Discovery’ apples, ‘Louise

Above The striking main

house, set some distance from the walled garden.

Right A silken, scarlet poppy flower unfurls itself from its bud.

Below Neatly arranged vegetables in the walled garden quadrant devoted to edibles.

Left The mini-meadows add swathes of colour in contrast to the garden’s shrubby backdrop.

FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 61

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Bonne of Jersey’ and ‘Williams’ Bon Chrétien’ pears and ‘Morello’ cherries were fanned or espaliered along the walls. Just one apricot, ‘Tomcot’, was planted. “Apricots tend not to succeed as the garden is a bit of a frost pocket,” Hew explains.

The following year, paths were laid and soft fruit was planted in the perimeter beds behind the vegetables and besides them. Next, herb beds were planted at the foot of the south-facing wall to fill the summer air with the scent of rosemary, thyme, hyssop, sage, angelica, chamomile, tarragon, borage, bergamot, marjoram, lovage, lemon balm and lavenders. Low bouncy mounds of camomile demonstrate “what a camomile lawn would look like,” says Hew. Wild strawberries are tucked into corners around benches for children to find.

The work took on an exciting new dimension when the coach house was restored and made into a tool shed: its dark interior became key to a dramatic garden visit. Hew explains: “You walk through the tool shed, open the wooden door and suddenly

Right A bank of catmint

and Alchemilla mollis.

Below Wide metal arches clothed with trained apples and pears bridge the walled garden’s beds to form a contemplative tunnel.

Bottom from left

Californian poppies (Eschscholzia californica); toadflax, Linaria maroccana Fairy Bouquet Group.

see the light.” Immediately, your eye is drawn up a wide grass path to a blue bench framed with roses – and then you see the wildflowers. A spectacular, naturalistic, meadow style layout of pink and blue blooms from late May, culminating in a crescendo of scarlet and orange in August.

Asked why he chose to grow wildflowers Hew says simply he wanted to create an impact: “A bit of oomph.” His choice was reinforced by the sandy, alluvial soil with good drainage that they enjoy, due to the proximity of the River Leader. “Dig down three feet and you hit the river bed,” Hew adds. The conditions here are perfect for wildflowers.

Cut out of the remaining field, nine beds are sown with three different wildflower mixes devised by Pictorial Meadows, chosen to ensure a succession of colour until the first autumn frosts. Four beds contain a classic mix of Shirley poppy, Californian poppy, cornflowers, toadflax, red orache and larkspur. The next four include bishop’s flower (Ammi majus), cosmos, cornflower and Shirley poppies, while the final bed is sown with the firm’s Pixie Mix, which includes fairy toadflax, red and blue flax, more Shirley poppies, love-in-a-mist and candytuft. Height comes from brush pyramids covered in sweet peas. “The brush is natural-looking and gives the layout a bit of body,” says Hew. The beds are sown by hand the first week in May with the seed divided into five equal bags “so FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 63

Top Potatoes, brassicas

and broad beans now give Hew and Joanna the harvest they hoped for in their walled garden beds.

Above Corn poppies bobbing above mauve bee magnet, phacelia.

don’t end up with the seeds at one end.” Five or six weeks later the first flowers bloom. At the end of the season, the wildflowers are cut back and lifted. The beds are weeded, rotavated and lightly weeded again in spring. “Things self-seed but you have to be careful. It’s best to remove everything,” explains Hew. “Some plants can dominate, and you want to avoid that.” No mulch is required. The red mason bees that thrive on this feast are encouraged with nesting boxes incorporated into the walls.

“Early in the morning when the bees are around the garden buzzes.”

While the garden relies mostly on plants for its structure, Hew did introduce a tunnel of metal arches planted with apples and pears to divide the space horizontally while screening the second, productive part of the garden. “The arch gives a chance to stop and reflect, something one doesn’t often do in one’s own garden,” he notes. The apples trained onto it include ‘James Grieve’, ‘Keswick Codlin’ and ‘Wagener’, while the pears are ‘Conference’ and ‘Beurré Hardy’.

Laid out with easy-to-tend beds the productive area combines soft fruit and vegetables. Red and blackcurrants are grown against the north-facing wall in a bed covered with membrane to keep weeds down and moisture in. There are also whitecurrants and raspberries, especially white and red autumn fruiting ones. Blueberries are grown en masse.

“We rejected herbicides and pesticides in favour of preventative methods such as nets to protect

64 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

against butterflies,” says Hew. Fleece is used for frost protection when the fruit trees are flowering.

The vegetable beds are divided into four spaces with stone slabs and every four years what Hew describes as a “serious amount of muck” goes in.

The asparagus were donated by the head gardener at Mertoun House near St Boswells, so they were known to be a reliable variety for Scotland. “We added lots of coarse sand and mound up the soil to keep the crowns dry,” notes Hew. Young turnips are “delicious when caught early enough” and the same applies to beetroot, courgettes and lettuce. Surplus produce is even sold in the nearby village of Earlston.

A tranquil place where “the birds sing their hearts out”, the garden is sheltered in winter as wind tends to blow over the walls. It even remained sheltered when some of the trees on the east-facing bank above it were cut down to let in the light. The resulting gaps were replanted with drifts of rhododendrons for spring interest and hazel for coppicing. “It can feel quite snug in the walled garden – even in winter it’s often 2°C warmer inside than out,” says Hew, adding that soil quality is key and that the garden is pretty much organic. “The point about this garden is that the soil is so good it inspires you. When you plant things and they work it encourages you. It’s battling with poor soil that’s discouraging.” ■ Leadervale House, Earlston, Berwickshire TD4 6AJ is open to groups of up to 15 by appointment.

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Gardens for People

DESIGN DUOS

Ruth Chivers explores the work of John Brookes, a household name in British garden design, and the American landscape designer who inspired him, Thomas Church

IMAGE GAP/ANDREA JONES

T

At John Brookes’ garden, Denmans, there are no straight lines, axes or abrupt edges to borders.

here is always so much to do in the garden and when there’s a long list of tasks to get through, it’s all to easy to lose sight of the bigger picture: what are gardens for? Renowned landscape designers Thomas Church, who lived and worked in America, and John Brookes, who became a household name in Britain thanks to his best-selling books on garden design, both believed that gardens are for people – to enjoy. Gardens are outdoor living rooms, places to relax or to have fun entertaining friends, not just ornamental spaces requiring constant hard work.

FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 67

Top Geometry and asymmetry come to the fore in a zigzag water feature in a garden designed by Brookes.

Above John Brookes, in his garden at Denmans.

68 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

IMAGES ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN ARCHIVES, UC BERKELEY; GARDEN EXPOSURES/ANDREA JONES; JOHN BROOKES; PETER GILLESPIE

W

hat has an American who never worked in Britain got to do with the way we garden today? Seeing gardens as outdoor living rooms is an idea that has come to the UK from the USA, with specific influence coming via Californian garden design, as practised by American landscape architect Thomas Church. He was one of the first to answer the question ‘what are gardens for?’ and design them in a way that suited modern architecture and the realities of 20th-century living. John Brookes always acknowledged Church as a major influence. Two key ideas made both men influential in their time and relevant today. The first of these was that the people who use a garden affect its design; the second was the modernist principle that form follows function.

Church lived and practised in California, having studied landscape architecture at Berkeley. After

further study at Harvard, he spent six months travelling in Italy and Spain and based his thesis on this seminal experience, outlining the parallels between the climates, landscape and vegetation of the Mediterranean and California.

Today, it’s widely known that the term ‘Mediterranean climate’ includes the Mediterranean, California, parts of Chile, southern Africa and western Australia. But in the late 1920s, Church’s thesis was a revelation to Californian gardeners.

Alongside his text were pictures of villas and gardens in Tuscany and Frascati, together with photos of houses and gardens in Santa Barbara. These were the homes and small gardens of ordinary people, livable and practical because of the scale and imagination shown in their design.

Church focused on private gardens rather than large-scale public spaces. He drew two major elements from his travels and translated them into his work. These were to design gardens as outdoor living spaces and to use drought resistant-plants appropriate for the Californian climate. Planted areas were kept small and simple, since they needed irrigation to keep them lush. He made a second European trip in 1937 to study the work of Le Corbusier, Alvar Aalto and modernist artists Arp and Miró. Afterwards, he adopted a modernist approach in his designs, experimenting with new shapes and forms and mixing sweeping curves with straight lines and zigzags. As he wrote in House Beautiful in 1948: “Architectural pattern is the bone structure of the garden. If a garden has a bold and basic pattern, it will have a beauty that neither snow nor sleet nor gloom of winter can ravage.”

El Novillero, the Donnell Garden in Sonoma, is his most influential work, specifically its swimming pool area. One of the most famous swimming pools in the world, photographs of it featured in many magazines and books. Unusually, the swimming pool was built before the house due to post-war material shortages – as a fire-fighting resource, the pool was permitted to go ahead. This 1947 project bore all of Church’s hallmarks: he said its shape reflected patterns in nature, such as the looping course of the meandering river in the valley below. Others see the influence of artists such as Arp, Miró and Kandinsky. Church specified a new, fast-setting form of concrete that made its innovative shape technically possible.

A breakthrough from rectangular pools, it was decorative yet functional. To one side, a zigzag line marks the change from concrete to redwood decking, which enabled Church to retain existing trees – something he was always keen to do. The parapet around the deck includes a built-in seat, which is another Church signature.

Church’s 1955 book Gardens are for People featured other case studies that demonstrated his approach, written in a witty, accessible style.

Right A Church design

for a Californian beach garden, with sweeping curves, straight lines and statement zigzags.

Below Garden designer Thomas Church.

Bottom Built-in seating and small areas of planting at El Novillero.

For Church, gardens were for people to enjoy as a backdrop to everyday life, rather than spaces requiring lots of maintenance – just as his clients wanted.

Brookes said reading Gardens are for People was a revelation. Seeing abstracted forms and shapes in modern gardens that made outdoor living easy was an inspiration. Like Church, he trained as a landscape designer but preferred to focus on private gardens. He

was especially struck by the way Church’s designs were not based on axes. With no beginning or end, they flowed, with good views from several vantage points. Church used geometry and asymmetry to make gardens appear larger, his informal designs underpinned by a strong discipline; soon Brookes developed his own method, called ‘The Grid’, to ensure correct proportion and scale in his layouts.

FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 69

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IMAGES GARDEN EXPOSURES/ANDREA JONES; JOHN BROOKES

DESIGN DUOS

In 1969’s Room Outside, Brookes promoted his new approach, which was influenced by Church.

The book’s cover showed a stylish outdoor room with dining table and cushioned seating. “A garden is a place for use by people… not a static picture created by plants,” he wrote. “Plants provide the props, the colour and texture, but the garden is the stage and its design should be determined by the uses it is intended to fulfil.” His writing was accessible and he published many books. Thanks to his television appearances and teaching, he did more than most to demystify modern garden design in the UK and abroad. He took up Church’s baton and showed it was possible to make gardens that complemented post-war houses and were forwardlooking, welcoming, planted spaces.

Both Church and Brookes had gardens that sat alongside contrasting architecture. Church remodelled the garden of his Victorian San Francisco townhouse several times. Gardens are for People showed its final incarnation. Behind a tall fence, a simple curving path through green planting led up a divided stairway to the front door, influenced by designs he’d seen at Fontainebleau, but with a contemporary twist. At Denmans, the house and four-acre garden in Sussex that Brookes moved to in 1980, trees and plants divide the space; there are no straight lines, no axes and no edges to borders. It’s a place of curving lawns with some unmown longer grass and planting that melds into gravel paths.

There are plenty of places to relax and enjoy the garden, with seats tucked into sheltered spots.

Brookes was asked to design English gardens all over the world. His initial response was always to enquire precisely what clients meant by ‘English’ – he didn’t want to produce designs that wouldn’t suit the climate and location. At Chicago Botanic Garden’s English Walled Garden, Brookes said he

Above The swimming

pool at El Novillero; the supine sculpture by Adaline Kent echoes the pool’s curving shape and is functional too – it’s a great place to sunbathe.

Below Brookes used a grid to ensure correct scale and proportion from the house.

wanted his design to represent an English country garden from the past, with “a feeling of it all not being too immaculate.”

Planting had to reflect the local climate, but the results look traditionally English, with solid modern American foundations. It is one of the most popular parts of the garden and British visitors will feel at home with the formal vistas, water trickling into an aged lead cistern, the pergola and cottage garden.

As well as being influenced by Church, Brookes also worked with renowned English landscape architect Brenda Colvin. She had studied with Gertrude Jekyll and imparted her belief in the importance of plant form and texture to Brookes.

His planting style was simple: he would create a backbone of trees and shrubs and infill them with smaller shrubs and soft perennials. Rather than planting single plants, he advocated using fewer varieties in greater numbers. Planting was stylish yet functional – low-growing groundcover plants reduced maintenance – and was always based on the garden’s location to ensure its suitability: important when working abroad. Above all, Brookes’ gardens always had places for owners to sit and entertain, spaces for children to play and for all to relax.

Visit John Brookes’ garden at Denmans Garden, Denmans Lane, Fontwell, West Sussex BN18 0SU. Tel: 01243 278950; denmans.org

FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 71

DESIGN DUOS

DESIGN YOUR OWN outdoor living room Follow the lead of Thomas Church and John Brookes to create a fully functioning garden

Don’t be afraid to prune Church declared that “Pruning shears wisely used are the gardener’s best friend”. He took a pair of secateurs when he visited clients and they would often find him pruning their shrubs and clipping ivy into diamond shapes.

72 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

Maximise space Church believed that the smaller houses were built, the more important the garden became – it’s still often the largest ‘room’.

Make a list of the activities you’ll do in your garden and use it to make a plan for its different areas.

Use steps to create an expansive look Brookes and Church each excelled in step design. In small gardens with a simple change in levels, making one or two steps the whole width of the garden will create an expansive look, while putting planted containers at the sides creates a great display. ■

IMAGES ALAMY; GARDEN EXPOSURES/ANDREA JONES; GAP/ANDREA JONES; JOHN BROOKES

Limit paving and hard landscaping materials Brookes limited how many materials he used – a concrete or stone slab, a brick, and gravel – with colours that harmonised with the house or landscape, like at the Chicago Botanic Garden (above). Church also limited his choice, using commonplace materials finished in extraordinary ways. Enhance cheap slabs with an edging of more expensive bricks, or use bricks to make a grid into which modules of slabs are laid.

Get the basic dimensions right Terraces, like this one at Denmans, should be large enough to fit a table with the chairs pulled back. A guideline allowance is 3-3.5m2 for a table and six chairs, but adapt this scale using your own garden furniture.

Existing paving can be extended simply and cheaply by adding a band of well–laid gravel that matches the paving.

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PLANT FOCUS

Subtle Charms

WORDS KERRIE LLOYD-DAWSON IMAGE GARDEN WORLD IMAGES

Pulmonarias are often overlooked in favour of showier plants, but give these versatile, easy-going perennials a chance and they will soon win you over

Purple and pink flowers combine with eye-catching, spotted leaves on ‘Majesté’.

FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 75

P

ulmonarias are an often neglected gem, deserving of a place in your garden for the dainty, nectar-filled flowers they produce from late winter to spring, mounds of attractive foliage lasting for months, and their undemanding nature.

Unfortunately, they have very little ‘pot presence’ and might not attract attention at your local nursery.

Pulmonarias sulk in pots, where their leaves will remain small and unexciting, but once in the ground these fabulous plants will gain a new lease of life and start to reveal their charms.

Pulmonarias are part of the borage family and have a long history of medicinal use. Under the 76 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

Above The luminous glow of Pulmonaria ‘Sissinghurst White’ will add a touch of light to a shady corner.

ancient European doctrine of signatures, a plant’s characteristics were believed to indicate which part of the human body it could be used to treat. The spots on pulmonaria leaves were said to resemble a diseased lung, hence its common name of lungwort.

The leaves are arranged in a rosette and form either a slow, creeping mound or an upright clump. Numerous stems elongate in early winter, bearing smaller leaves along their length, and holding multiple funnel-shaped flowers above the foliage.

Delightfully, many cultivars have flowers that change colour as they age. But their appeal doesn’t end there – handsome new summer leaves develop that show off any markings at their best, attractive as a feature in their own right or as a foil for later flowering plants. Most pulmonarias are semi-evergreen, but don’t panic if they disappear underground over winter. Some, such as ‘Blue Ensign’, with its plain, very dark green leaves and deep blue flowers, die back relatively early and emerge late into growth.

Some people are deterred by spotted or mottled foliage, but try one pulmonaria in your garden and you’ll be converted. Vanessa Cook, a former pulmonaria National Collection holder, discovered their seductive quality when her handful of plants grew into a collection of 150 varieties, inspiringly displayed in her garden at Stillingfleet Lodge, York.

What started as a family home surrounded by fields used for livestock, poultry and bees more than 40 years ago, is now a series of cottage gardens planted for ease of maintenance, scent and colour. A long season of interest created by foliage is key to Vanessa’s aim of having something to enjoy all year round. “I collect pictures, but I can’t paint, so I think I paint pictures in the garden,” she muses. Pulmonarias are an essential part of that artistry: “They flower early, and then you get wonderful foliage for the rest of the year.”

Vanessa’s collection started with ‘Mary Mottram’, which she was excited to name after the owner of the Devon nursery from which it came. It remains a favourite because “it has excellent foliage in all

IMAGES CLIVE NICHOLS; GAP/MARTIN HUGHES-JONES/HOWARD RICE

PLANT FOCUS

conditions, and looks good all winter”. The leaves are relatively large with a silvery centre and a spotted edge, and the flowers are large and soft mauve. Of course, her favourite has to be ‘Stillingfleet Meg’, which she named after her daughter. It has pretty, mid-pink flowers that age to light blue, held over narrow, dark green leaves that are slightly spotted. If you remain unpersuaded by mottled leaves, Vanessa recommends P. angustifolia ‘Blaues Meer’ for its “plain green leaves and very nice big blue flowers”.

In general, pulmonarias prefer moist soil in full or part shade, though in Vanessa’s experience “most will grow anywhere, but the more rain and the better the soil the bigger the foliage”. One of their many endearing attributes is how unfussy they are about location, making them versatile planting companions. The exception is P. rubra, which particularly dislikes it hot or dry, but since it slowly spreads, rather than clumping, is useful as underplanting in shaded areas. “They make fantastic groundcover at the back of a border under shrubs where you will notice them in winter and they will be shaded in summer,” Vanessa enthuses. There are nearly always P. rubra flowers at Christmas and they continue flowering until May in the right conditions.

One of Vanessa’s favourites for its eye-catching variegated foliage is P. rubra ‘David Ward’, discovered by the propagation manager at Beth Chatto’s nursery and named after him. Broad, sagegreen leaves have irregular white margins and make a dramatic backdrop for coral-red flowers. It must have shade and soil that does not dry out, or the

Top left The large, dark

blue flowers of strong performer, ‘Blaues Meer’.

Top right Pretty, midpink ‘Stillingfleet Meg’ was named by Vanessa Cook after her daughter.

Above Pulmonaria ‘Mary Mottram’ has attractive foliage all year round.

leaf edges may scorch or curl. It’s lovely grown with epimediums and low-growing dicentra.

Some pulmonarias offer more subtle flower colour.

Vanessa values ‘Opal’ for its palest blue opalescent flowers over elegant spotted leaves, which is also one of the last to flower, and ‘Vera May’ with its very pretty, soft pink flowers held over lightly spotted foliage. For a true white, the best is ‘Sissinghurst White’, which has virtually evergreen, lightly spotted leaves, although it lacks the vigour of others.

Silver-leaved varieties are invaluable for brightening a shady spot. One of the best, and an FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 77

PLANT FOCUS

AGM holder since ‘Cotton Cool’ is one of 2012, is ‘Diana Clare’, many lungworts that found as a seedling on bear flowers of different Bob Brown’s nursery colours simultaneously.

Cotswold Garden Top right Above its heavily silver-splashed Flowers and named leaves, ‘Opal’ will bear after his wife. Sprays flowers of palest blue. of violet-blue flowers Right Another of are held high above Vanessa’s favourites, coral-red ‘David Ward’. narrow basal leaves that are heavily silvered with a wavy edge. Another with almost completely silver leaves is ‘Majesté’, a vigorous hybrid making multiple, low crowns and bearing pink and lavenderblue flowers. Plant it with snowdrops, hellebores and ferns to weave an enchanting woodland tapestry.

Despite its silvery foliage, Vanessa maintains that ‘Cotton Cool’, with its long, elegant, upright leaves and blue and pink flowers, doesn’t burn in the sun and survives for most of the winter. Some, such as ‘Trevi Fountain’, will take a good deal of sun. It forms a healthy mound of oval, deep green leaves that are brightly spotted with silver, and produces cobalt-blue flowers from pink buds. It copes well with drought, is virtually evergreen and is well deserving of its AGM. Vanessa suggests planting them somewhere that you walk past all the time, enabling you to enjoy the foliage in winter. Or take a leaf out of Adrian Bloom’s book at The Bressingham Gardens and plant in rows as border edging. ■ Above Pulmonaria

78 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

Perfect pulmonarias Vanessa Cook explains how easy these wonderful plants are to grow Plant at any time of the year in part sun or shade. They are unfussy about soil pH and will grow where other plants won’t.

In poor or dry soil the leaves will be smaller, so consider enriching with well-rotted manure, compost or leaf mould.

Once established they won’t need any additional watering, unless it’s very hot or dry.

Powdery mildew problems are rare, but if a plant becomes affected, cut it down to 1 inch

above ground and it should produce a new flush of leaves.

Remove flower stems before they set seed if you don’t want them to spread around your garden. They are very promiscuous, and the seedlings won’t come true to the parent.

Divide clumps in late August or early September if they become too large or you want to make more plants. New plants will also grow very easily from root cuttings.

IMAGES CLIVE NICHOLS; GARDEN WORLD IMAGES

Stillingfleet Lodge Gardens & Nursery, Stewart Lane, Stillingfleet, York YO19 6HP. Tel: 01904 728506; stillingfleetlodgenurseries.co.uk

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Snowdrops “in the green”

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Summer flowering bulbs to plant this spring

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Finished in a wipe clean cover and spiral bound with botanical illustrations by Susan Olgilvy marking the start of each month. 6” wide (15 cm) and just over 9” deep (23.5 cm) and weighing 770g these are provided in a purpose made delivery sleeve and can be posted at any time (they make great Christmas presents) but can be started at any time of year. Unique to ourselves and not available elsewhere.

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Spring flowering bulbs available in the Autumn You can ‘register an interest’ in these on our website to receive an email when they are next available to order.

www.avonbulbs.co.uk

01460 242177

AVON BULBS

Galanthus nivalis ‘Green Tear’.

Galanthus nivalis (Sandersii Group) ‘Lowick’.

White Gold

Jacky Hobbs visits Avon Bulbs where choice collectors’ snowdrops rub shoulders with great garden varieties, perfect for naturalising PHOTOGRAPHS CLIVE NICHOLS

Galanthus elwesii var. monostictus ‘Warwickshire Gemini’.

Galanthus ‘Welshway’.

FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 81

AVON BULBS

I

n the woodland glades of Avon Bulbs’ nursery in Somerset, free-range snowdrops run amok in their shady pleasure ground, unwittingly spawning new generations of future gems as they promiscuously hybridise with one another. In the nursery itself, a vast array of meticulously labelled cultivars in pots line a procession of coldframes, destined for national and international snowdrop fairs where they’ll tempt visiting galanthophiles.

A February visit here reveals a spectacular collection of some 250 coveted galanthus species and cultivars. Chris Ireland-Jones, owner of Avon Bulbs, bought the Bath-based nursery over 30 years ago, relocating it to an eight-acre former farm in South Petherton, Somerset, but at first the site didn’t

82 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

Above Virescent

snowdrops, with outer green markings are highly sought after, like this as yet unnamed green-tipped plicate.

really suit snowdrops at all. “Initially the clay soil was on the heavy side, not ideal for growing bulbs,” Chris recalls. “But over the years we have incorporated tons of organic matter, waste compost and leaf litter, which has have left it much improved.”

Strategic deciduous hedging now protects the coldframes, supplying the shade these specimen bulbs need in summer, while Chris has planted oak and beech across an open field, to create a new woodland. “Once the saplings were big enough, we planted surplus stock snowdrops in a dedicated glade and other woodland bulbs – cyclamen, winter aconites, crocuses and narcissi – at their feet, with paths meandering through.”

Now the wood is filled with such an abundance of thriving and prolific winter bulbs that you need to tread carefully between the ever-increasing seas of flowers. The conditions here are perfect for naturalisation and exemplary large snowdrop clumps are treated as nursery stock; thriving in their natural habitat, these impressively healthy-sized plants are perfect for propagating.

Together with Avon Bulbs’ galanthus expert, Alan Street, Chris first identifies, marks and labels prodigious flowering clumps so that reliably named plants can be divided or otherwise propagated once dormant. Many of the rarer bulbs, are lifted and carefully ‘chipped’ – each tiny bulb surgically divided into eight or more segments – before being potted under the cover of a coldframe. Alan is very nearly a snowdrop ‘immortal’, a title reserved for those who have a snowdrop registered in their name – strictly speaking, Galanthus ‘Alan’s Treat’ just denies him this accolade on a technicality!

The nursery’s extensive offering includes common G. nivalis and G. elwesii types, those good garden snowdrops perfect for naturalising, with plentiful middle-order snowdrops and then those rare collectible specimens, some unique to the nursery.

Although there are only around 20 different species of galanthus, human intervention has resulted in more than 2,500 named cultivars.

These have evolved over time and galanthophiles continue to hunt down all sorts of increasingly unusual variations, in particular: those with green markings on the inner perianth; virescent snowdrops

with outer green markings; unusual forms such as pagoda-shaped flowers; poculiform snowdrops, like ‘E.A. Bowles’ and ‘Seraph’, where the snowdrops have six uniform outer segments; yellow colouring; and, most recently, all-white specimens.

Snowdrops’ inner markings are often reflected in the cultivar name, like G. elwesii ‘Grumpy,’ which wears down-in-the-mouth markings, while the inners of large-flowered G. elwesii ‘Deer Slot’ depict a cloven hoof. Breeders, collectors, ‘owners’ and garden names are also commonly represented.

Classics include G. elwesii ‘Marjorie Brown’, which Alan says is late-flowering, vigorous and highly gardenworthy, highlighting ‘‘the blue cast of its wide glaucous foliage.” ‘S. Arnott’, meanwhile, was probably bred by Samuel Arnott in the early 1900s.

Top row from left From

Avon’s woodland glade, Eranthis hyemalis ‘Schwefelglanz’; Crocus tommasinianus; Galanthus ‘South Hayes’.

Bottom row from left

Galanthus ‘S. Arnott’; owner Chris IrelandJones with head nurseryman Alan Street.

“It’s tall, thick-petalled, very white, handsomely proportioned and memorable for its honeyed scent,” notes Alan. ‘Hill Poë’, is named for Irishman James Hill Poë who found it in his garden. This late-flowering double has a tightly packed inner rosette and narrow outer segments. And G. elwesii var. monostictus ‘Warwickshire Gemini’, which was discovered in said county, “is an absolute giant, which, once established, will throw two flowerheads,” according to Alan.

Other coveted cultivars include those with green markings on the outer rather than the inner petals.

These so-called ‘virescent’ snowdrops include the Dutch-discovered ‘Green Tear’ with green brushstrokes along the full length of its outer petals.

The rare and later-flowering ‘Green Arrow’ has FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 83

AVON BULBS

sharper, green-tipped outer petals. Somewhere in between lies ‘Cowhouse Green’, named after the field nearby in which it was found in the late 1980s.

The 21st century saw the arrival of extraordinary pagoda-shaped snowdrops (also known as inverse poculiform hybrids), with green markings on their outer, but upturned, petals. They include G. plicatus ‘Trym’ and its offspring, which include striking ‘South Hayes’, ‘Trymming’ and ‘Trumps’.

Above left Slender-

petalled, elongated Galanthus ‘Wasp’.

Middle Classic, yellowcapped Galanthus ‘Wendy’s Gold’.

Above right Galanthus ‘The Wizard’.

Growing SNOWDROPS Alan Street’s galanthus planting tips to ensure good establishment and pretty spring displays Plant all snowdrops, 10-15cm deep, in a cool, moist position with some spring sunshine but with drier summer shade.

When bulk planting for mass effect or naturalising, buy and plant snowdrops in the green, whenever possible, from February. Plant immediately on receipt, at 10cm intervals, water in and protect from severe weather using leaves, bracken or horticultural fleece.

Grow special snowdrops in extra-long pots. Avon Bulbs’ are delivered in biodegradable bags, and sent out first class for planting on the day of delivery.

Or plant individual special plants into labelled aquatic pots filled with a soil-based potting medium 84 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

and a little sharp sand. Plunge into the border to make them easily retrievable in summer for repotting.

Lift and divide every 3-4 years in late spring as leaves turn yellow and replant in a new spot refreshed with granular fertiliser. Apply a leafmould mulch in autumn.

Dormant snowdrops or dry bulbs are available from August onwards for immediate planting into open ground or in mesh pots as above.

Label and water very sparingly until autumn. Plunge individual specimen pots into a border to protect roots from temperature extremes. If growing under glass, ensure good ventilation and move pots to a shady space outdoors, post flowering.

“It’s easily the best and brightest, green-tipped snowdrop around. It flowers early and increases freely,” enthuses Alan, who discovered his own inverse poculiform in Avon’s woodland copse and christened it ‘The Wizard’.

“Yellow-capped snowdrops with corresponding yellow markings are another one for the collector,” suggests Alan, adding that “their colouring has a tendency to vary”. He finds they colour up better in full sun. G. plicatus ‘Wendy’s Gold’, is the classic benchmark, named after the warden’s wife at Wandlebury Ring where it was discovered.

Newer findings are even more scarce. G. nivalis (Sandersii Group) ‘Lowick’, from the Cambo estate in Scotland, is similar to classic G. nivalis, but its inner heart is gold not green, while elegant ‘Ecusson d’Or’ was one of the first to bear yellow on its outer petals. G. nivalis ‘Blonde Inge’ preceded the allyellows, unusually combining yellow inner markings with a contrasting green cap. In Avon Bulbs’ prolific woodland copse, keen-eyed Alan has discovered a similarly arranged, yellow seedling that was named ‘Midas’, and initially listed at £120. This is a rare, fabled colour-change snowdrop. “Its initially green inner and outer markings turn a glowing golden yellow a few days after opening,” he enthuses.

Alan and Chris guide customers through myriad snowdrop choices on their website, recommending “foundation’ snowdrops for beginners,” and “very good snowdrops that are distinctive, vigorous and less costly”, before unveiling more mouth-watering, limited availability ‘Collectors Snowdrops’, which come at a price. At snowdrop fairs and shows across the country their specimens surpass all others. ■ Avon Bulbs is not open to the public but visit their website at avonbulbs.co.uk to view the catalogue and listings of the various snowdrop events they will be attending. Tel: 01460 242177 or 01460 249060.

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Benington, Stevenage, Herts SG2 7BS SNOWDROPS AT BENINGTON LORDSHIP GARDENS The ruins of a Norman castle and a Victorian gatehouse folly serve as a spectacular backdrop to the stunning display of naturalised snowdrops at Benington Lordship.

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Enjoy one of the UK’s finest Snowdrop Walks at Rode Hall & Gardens in Cheshire to mark the start of Spring. A beautiful end of winter walk for all the family with a wonderfully diverse landscape and over 70 varieties of snowdrops. Homemade lunches and cream teas served in the delightful courtyard kitchen. Group bookings welcome by appointment.

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Snowdrops Colesbourne Park

‘England’s greatest snowdrop garden’, in the heart of the Cotswolds, is open to visitors on Saturdays & Sundays from 25th January to 1st March from 1pm. Guided tours for parties (minimum 20) by appointment on weekdays, including refreshments and a talk by Sir Henry Elwes.

Colesbourne Park is on the A435 halfway between Cheltenham and Cirencester.

Telephone: 01242 870264 Email: estate@colesbourne.net For more information please see our website: www.colesbournegardens.org.uk 86 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

SNOWDROP GARDENS

IMAGES CLIVE NICHOLS WORDS CLARE FOGGETT

Galanthus ‘Titania’, a Greatorex double with a dense central frill, at Colesbourne Park

Snowdrop Fever Now delicate snowdrops are emerging to brighten the winter gloom, we round up places to see both connoisseur varieties and en masse planting, as well as the best snowdrop events and open days

FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 87

SNOWDROP GARDENS

I

n late January and February, nothing lifts a gardener’s spirits in quite the same way as the annual appearance of snowdrops, so it’s no wonder that they inspire a host of festivals and garden openings, or that rarer snowdrop varieties have become an object of desire for collectors. Whether you’re in the market for a connoisseur bulb to cosset, or simply enjoy a reviving walk on a chilly day that takes in an impressive display, here’s our guide to all things galanthus.

See snowdrops in profusion Knock your snowdrop socks off with the great swathes of naturalised snowdrops on display at larger gardens such as WELFORD PARK in Berkshire.

Here, sheets of Galanthus nivalis shimmer in the winter light, carpeting the ground in the estate’s beech woods. Wednesday to Sunday, 29 January to 1 March. welfordpark.co.uk Cheshire’s RODE HALL is renowned for its snowdrop walks, where thousands of snowdrops engulf the Old Wood – around 70 varieties in total, including G. nivalis along with some more intriguing cultivars in the garden’s formal areas. Tuesday to Sunday, 1 February to 1 March. rodehall.co.uk At HODSOCK PRIORY in Derbyshire, paths wind through naturalised collections of snowdrops 88 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

Above The collection

of snowdrops at Colesbourne Park in Gloucestershire dates from the 1870s.

that owners Sir Andrew and Lady Buchanan have nurtured since the 1960s. Saturday 8 to Sunday 16 February. snowdrops.co.uk. Next door in Lincolnshire, the Spring Bulb Pageant at DODDINGTON HALL starts with snowdrops on 9 February. doddingtonhall.com As a celebration of Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012, the residents of SHAFTESBURY in Dorset decided to plan a series of snowdrop walks around the town. Since then, more than 200,000 bulbs have been planted, and Shaftesbury celebrates Snowdrop Season each year from late January to early March, including, on 8 February, a talk from Matt Bishop, Aaron Davis and John Grimshaw, the three authors of Snowdrops: A Monograph of Cultivated Galanthus, the definitive reference. shaftesburysnowdrops.org. Elsewhere in Dorset, the one-and-a-half-mile snowdrop walk at the National Trust’s KINGSTON LACY meanders through thick carpets of brilliant white. nationaltrust.org.uk The winter garden in CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY BOTANIC GARDEN has just celebrated its 40th birthday. To discover beautiful ways to team snowdrops with other wintry plants, this is the place to visit. botanic.cam.ac.uk Near Newmarket, the snowdrops at CHIPPENHAM PARK can be seen from 8 to 29 February, spangled

IMAGES CLIVE NICHOLS; NATIONAL TRUST/RICHARD PINK

across the lawns alongside winter aconites in large, naturalised displays. chippenhamparkgardens.info.

And outside Stevenage, admire a snowdrop collection that was planted in the early 20th century at BENINGTON LORDSHIP. 5 February to 1 March. beningtonlordship.co.uk In Essex, the nature reserve at DAWS HALL is dusted with a covering of snowdrops’ white flowers.

Visit on 9, 16 or 23 February. dawshallnature.co.uk Join garden writer Val Bourne at HEVER CASTLE on 8 February, when she’ll be giving a talk about snowdrops. Afterwards explore the garden’s Snowdrop Walk, where some 80,000 snowdrops have been planted, including more unusual varieties such as ‘Wendy’s Gold’ and green-tipped ‘Green Brush’. hevercastle.co.uk At HOPTON HALL in Derbyshire, five acres of woodland are stippled with white, the popular Snowdrop Walk being the result of clearing and planting that began in 1996. 1 February to 1 March. hoptonhall.co.uk. Further north at WALLINGTON in Northumberland, hundreds of thousands of snowdrops, many of which were planted by an army of volunteers back in 2015, are ready to be admired on a bracing stroll through the East Wood and the walled garden. nationaltrust.org.uk

Seek out something special Gather at MYDDELTON HOUSE in Enfield, the former home of legendary snowdrop collector E.A. Bowles, for the annual Ultimate Snowdrop Sale and take home sought-after rare varieties. Saturday 25 January. visitleevalley.org.uk Indulge a passion for unusual snowdrops at GREAT COMP in Kent, which is holding its sixth Snowdrop Sensation day on 16 February. Specialist nurseries like Monksilver, Glen Chantry, Edulis and Spring Platt Snowdrops will be there, and there’s a talk by snowdrop expert Andy Byfield, who has

Top left Welford Park’s

snowdrops carpet the ground below beech trees and by a stream.

Top right Galanthus ‘Green Tip’ at Hodsock.

Above In Dorset, explore Kingston Lacy’s 40 acres of gardens and its one-and-a-half-mile, snowdrop-lined walk.

spent a decade establishing sustainable snowdrop growing in Turkey. greatcompgarden.co.uk Well-known galanthophile Joe Sharman, of Monksilver Nursery will lead a talk and tour at the CHELSEA PHYSIC GARDEN on 26 January – it’s a glimpse into the intriguing world of snowdrops for any budding collector. chelseaphysicgarden.co.uk Head to the annual Celebration of Snowdrops in Bury St Edmunds at HARVEYS GARDEN PLANTS FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 89

to see and buy rare galanthus from Harveys and other specialist sellers – as an added bonus, it’s all undercover in a snug polytunnel. Saturday 18 January. harveysgardenplants.co.uk. And in Devon, RHS ROSEMOOR holds its Snowdrop Weekend on 2-3 February, with specialist nurseries like Avon Bulbs selling unusual varieties, plus guided walks and talks. rhs.org.uk/rosemoor

Enjoy the best of both worlds Cambridgeshire’s ANGLESEY ABBEY boasts displays of naturalised snowdrops and plenty of specialist varieties – 20 of which were discovered here – that can be seen on tours led by the garden team. 27 January to 28 February. nationaltrust.org.uk At EASTON WALLED GARDENS in Lincolnshire, drifts of snowdrops surround the old gatehouse and light up the woodland walk. Keep your eyes peeled around the tearoom, where rare and unusual varieties lurk. 15 to 23 February. visiteaston.co.uk Gloucestershire’s COLESBOURNE PARK is synonymous with snowdrops, since it is here that Henry John Elwes – who discovered strappy-leaved Galanthus elwesii in 1874 – was born and died.

Now Sir Henry and Lady Carolyn Elwes take care of the estate, and the snowdrop collection has burgeoned. There are displays of naturalised bulbs, and a fine collection of desirable cultivars to delight enthusiasts. Saturday to Sunday, 25 January to 1 March. colesbournegardens.org.uk. Also in Gloucestershire is PAINSWICK ROCOCO GARDEN, which is renowned for its thick carpet of impactful variety, Galanthus ‘Atkinsii’. rococogarden.org.uk North of the border, CAMBO is the place to go to see swathes of snowdrops in 70 acres of wintry 90 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

Top left Great Comp’s

Snowdrop Sensation day brings specialist sellers to the Kent garden.

Top right Galanthus ‘Atkinsii’ at Painswick.

Above See a range of different Galanthus during the National Garden Scheme’s Snowdrop Festival.

woodland, and there’s a host of other family-friendly activities during the snowdrop season too. Cambo holds the Plant Heritage National Collection of snowdrops, so as well as masses of Galanthus nivalis, there are another 350 varieties to see and buy. 2 February to 12 March. cambosnowdrops.com Margery Fish’s former home, EAST LAMBROOK MANOR GARDENS, is holding its second Festival of Snowdrops this spring. Snowdrop photography by Jason Ingram will be on display, while snowdrops growing in the garden include cultivars that originated here, such as ‘Margery Fish’ and ‘Lambrook Greensleeves’. Tuesday to Sunday, 1 to 29 February. eastlambrook.com Last but not least, don’t forget the 115 gardens opening for the National Garden Scheme during the Scheme’s 2020 Snowdrop Festival (1 to 28 February).

Of particular interest to the connoisseur will be HIGHER CHERUBEER in Devon, with its collection of 400 different varieties (7, 14, and 22 February), KNOWLE HILL FARM in Kent where snowdrops grow alongside hellebores (8-10 February) and PEMBURY HOUSE in West Sussex, which opens by arrangement in February and March. Visit ngs.org.uk/snowdrops for a list of all the Snowdrop Festival gardens. ■

IMAGES CLIVE NICHOLS; NGS/LEIGH CLAPP

SNOWDROP GARDENS

RHS Registered Charity No. 222879/SC038262

RHS members go free

Snowdrop Trail This winter, delight in drifts of delicate snowdrops at Cambridge University Botanic Garden.

Over 30 different varieties feature in our Snowdrop Trail, guiding you to the snowdrop ‘hot spots’, scattered throughout the Garden.

The trail includes information about the varieties we grow, plus ‘how to grow tips’, snowdrop science, history, folklore and more.

The snowdrops are expected to be in bloom from late January to late February.

See website for updates.

www.botanic.cam.ac.uk @CUBotanicGarden 1 Brookside, Cambridge CB2 1JE • 01223 336265

FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 91

Garden Roses Full colour catalogue of all the very best roses available - bare root roses now being despatched until end March 2020.

Pococks Roses, Jermyns Lane, Romsey, Hants SO51 0QA. Tel 01794 367500 email pococksroses@btconnect.com

New website now live - www.garden-roses.co.uk © National Trust 2019. Registered Charity no. 205846.

Photography © National Trust Images/David Goacher.

SPRING BULB PAGEANT

Unique photo opportunities made at Calke Abbey With a unique display of snowdrops on the rare surviving auricula theatre and a series of faded glasshouses, there’s plenty of history and beauty to be found in Calke Abbey’s gardens. Step out into 600 acres of inspiring parkland, then warm up with a cuppa in the cosy tea room this winter. www.nationaltrust.org.uk/calke

92 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

A spectacular pageant of spring bulbs, beginning in early February with wonderful snowdrops, Cyclamen coum, and Crocus tommasinianus.

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ARMCHAIR BOTANY

Coming up Roses In the last of his series exploring plant families, Jim Cable introduces the rose family, Rosaceae, and the beautiful garden plants found within it

ILLUSTRATION DIANNE SUTHERLAND

T

ake an apple with its stem pointing up and cut it in half along its ‘equator’. You will expose the seeds enclosed in five chambers of the ovary arranged like an asterisk.

This pentagonal symmetry abounds in the rose family. Take other orchard fruit – pears, plums, cherries, apricots and almonds. All of these are rosaceous plants with flowers that are fragile five-petalled beauties for a few fleeting weeks in spring. A shiny fat rose hip is crowned with five pointy sepals. In France the fruit of the medlar has coined the common name cul de chien based on its resemblance to a dog’s nether end. If you prefer not to see that then look for the pentagon!

The Rosaceae family contains mainly woody trees, shrubs and climbers. A number of its members provide fruits of economic importance, including raspberries, peaches and, in subtropical countries, the loquat, Eriobotrya japonica.

Rosaceous fruits are often rich in vitamins, and

rosehip syrup became popular during World War II as a source of Vitamin C in the absence of imported oranges. Now foraging is a hobby, and the art of syrupmaking is enjoying a revival.

Leaves tend to be arranged alternately along the stem and have leaf-like stipules at their base. Prickles are another characteristic – as is the ability to spread by vegetative means rather than merely by seed. Think of strawberry runners or a bramble thicket with arching stems rooting where they touch the ground.

Rosa is the so-called type genus, which gives this family its name. It is also the most widely cultivated genus within Rosaceae for decorative effect. Roses, after all, have been garden plants since ancient times, but many of their close relatives are also perfect subjects for the English garden. Here are just a few.

Roses give their name to the Rosaceae family, and feature the typical five petals and prickly stems with leaves arranged alternately.

FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 93

ARMCHAIR BOTANY

Left Cydonia oblonga ‘Aromatnaya’. Middle Geum ‘Scarlet Tempest’. Right Alchemilla epipsila.

Cydonia oblonga ‘Aromatnaya’ Quince trees are native to central and south-western Asia.

Ancient trade paths brought them west and they became very popular here until they fell out of fashion in the 19th century. We have Vita Sackville-West to thank for reviving interest in them after she saw them growing wild in the hedgerows of France. The cultivar ‘Aromatnaya’ bears fruit as a young tree and cooks as well as other varieties, but unlike most quince it can also be eaten raw like a pear.

A tree laden with yellow fruit is a lovely sight in autumn.

Geum ‘Scarlet Tempest’ The rose family does not have many herbaceous members but geums are among the exceptions and ‘Scarlet Tempest’ is an especially lovely recent introduction. It bears large, apricot-suffused, tomato-red, semi-double flowers on slender branching stems above a clump of mid-green foliage.

Because it is sterile it’s especially floriferous adding zing to a border, or giving you blooms for a vase, on and off from April until the first frosts. Give it a fertile well-drained soil in sun or light dappled shade.

Alchemilla epipsila A herbaceous groundcover plant that shares many attributes with its better-known cousin, Alchemilla mollis, but is a little more compact, daintier and less prone to self-seeding 94 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

everywhere. It is useful for drawing attention away from spring bulbs when their flowers fade and makes for a very pretty edging plant with its scalloped leaves and sprays of lime-green flowers in June and July. Be brave and cut it right back to encourage fresh growth after flowering.

Prunus mume ‘Beni-chidori’ This Japanese apricot with a cultivar name meaning ‘red plover’ is a delight in March when, just before the new leaves emerge, it bears almond-scented madder-pink blossom. The buds are darker and the individual flowers, so attractive to early pollinators on the wing, fade over time giving a delightful multi-tone effect. It is more of a shrub than a tree with an eventual height and spread both around the 2.5m mark, so it is ideal for a small garden.

Gillenia trifoliata If you are a fan of gypsophila and gaura you will love the July blooms of the North American rhizomatous perennial Gillenia trifoliata, which may be fleeting but shimmer in a lightly shaded spot. Keep an eye out too for ‘Pink Profusion’. This cultivar retains the reddish stems and attractive three-lobed foliage of the species, but the starry flowers are soft pink rather than white and it has the added bonus of bright red autumn foliage. Use a few discreet hazel sticks to help keep the metre-high plants standing proud.

IMAGES GAP/JO WHITWORTH/CHRISTA BRAND/FHF GREENMEDIA; CLIVE NICHOLS; GARDEN WORLD IMAGES

Top left Prunus mume ‘Beni-chidori’. Top right Gillenia trifoliata.

Above left Rosa ‘Kew Gardens’. Above right Prunus x persicoides ‘Robijn’.

FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 95

ARMCHAIR BOTANY

Left Pyrus salicifolia ‘Pendula’. Centre Malus ‘Evereste’. Right Rubus thibetanus.

Prunus x persicoides ‘Robijn’ This makes a fine tree for a smaller garden provided you buy a specimen that has been grafted onto a St Julien A rootstock to limit its vigour. It is worth growing for the spring display of soft-pink blossom alone. If it is spared a sharp spring frost, you will have the lovely bonus of a crop of soft-shelled, sweet almonds ready for harvest in late August. It is self-fertile so you need only have one and they start fruiting just two or three years after planting.

Pyrus salicifolia ‘Pendula’ There is a dearth of grey-leaved temperate trees out there but if you are after a hardy alternative to an olive for an English garden, the weeping willow-leaved pear is always a reliable choice. Granted it is deciduous, but it is charming when clothed in narrow silvery leaves and has the bonus 96 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

of white flowers in spring followed by small green fruits, favoured by pollinators and birds respectively. It forms a graceful dome of cascading branches that can reach around 4m in height after 20 years.

Malus ‘Evereste’ Gardens need sculptural evergreens that provide static reference points, but they also need specimens that sing out the seasonal changes. Crab apples achieve this admirably with their deciduous nature, spring blossom and autumn fruit. They support wildlife and provide a harvest to make fruit jellies. ‘Evereste’ is a particularly fine choice that displays an abundance of white flowers opening from dark pink buds and then orangey-red fruits. It is an excellent choice of tree for the smaller garden and in really tight spaces it can be pleached, fan-trained or espaliered.

Rubus thibetanus A thug so loveable it has a Royal Horticultural Society Award of Garden Merit. If you don’t need this deciduous shrub as an impenetrable prowler-proof thicket, the trick is to coppice it each March. Then you can enjoy its delicate ferny foliage and small pink flowers in summer and, more importantly, the purplish-white-bloomed stems, which afford it the common name of ghost bramble, over the following winter. ■

IMAGES GAP/JO WHITWORTH; CLIVE NICHOLS

Rosa ‘Kew Gardens’ This is a truly versatile shrub rose that bears hydrangealike clusters of lightly scented, single, white flowers from May through until autumn. It can be grown in a large pot, as part of a hedge or in a mixed border. The simplicity of its blooms, reminiscent of a wild rose, makes it a perfect contributor to the current trend for more naturalistic planting in our gardens. It can cope with some shade and is almost thornless.

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ESSENTIAL TOOLS

The Cutting Room As well as bypass and anvil types, most secateur ranges now offer models to suit a variety of hands

O

f all the tools in a gardener’s shed, a pair of secateurs is probably the most personal: to lose a well-loved pair is almost to lose an extension of your hand.

That secateurs are also one of the most indispensable garden tools in our collections is reflected in the great range of models for different functions now available to us. Yet beneath the branding and design, secateurs operate by one of two means. Bypass secateurs, by far the most common, comprise two sharp blades that slide past each other like a robust pair of scissors to make a swift, clean cut best for live material that must not be infected.

By contrast, the blades of anvil secateurs meet one another, effectively crushing thicker, dead material where infection isn’t an issue.

The current mood for more ergonomic design has brought secateurs with gears, ratchets and even rotating handles to help cut through thicker stems or reduce risk of repetitive strain and compensate for a weaker grip or arthritis. Most companies supply these, including Fiskars, Darlac, Spear & Jackson, and Burgon & Ball, Stihl and Wolf. Take time to try a number of styles to see which appeals most.

Meanwhile, with much of the world designed to fit a larger, generally male frame, smaller-sized tools are finally getting a look-in. Felco, renowned for its classic Model 2, released Model 14 in 2019, which is smaller and lighter than other designs. Others such

BLADE RUNNER If you are prone to misplacing secateurs while working in the garden, a leather holster could be the answer. Most are proprietary to established brands, including Spear & Jackson, Niwaki, Felco and Darlac.

as Corona FlexDIAL have an adjustable reach so they will suit the hands of multiple users.

Japanese tools are currently enjoying great popularity thanks to their understated design and razor-sharp blades. Niwaki’s GR Pro Secateurs are the company’s own take on other Japanese brands, including Kurumi, Sentei and Toshibo. Queen among these must be Toshibo Hiryu secateurs, which, hand-forged to order, include a small reservoir of grease to make them self-lubricating, as well as a double-spring mechanism that makes them especially useful when pruning fruit trees. ■

WORDS VIVIENNE HAMBLY IMAGES GAP/HOWARD RICE

Kit to try : There’s a pair of secateurs for every gardener and garden task

Left-handed bypass secateurs, £26.99.

spear-and-jackson.com

Model 14 bypass secateurs, £56.99.

worldoffelco.co.uk

Darlac Super Classic ratchet secateur, £13.99.

gardeningforall.co.uk

Corona FlexDIAL pruner, £34.99.

coronatools.co.uk

RHS-endorsed anvil secateur, £20.99.

burgonandball.com

FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 99

MO RT ON H ALL G ARDENS

T U L I P F E S T I VA L 2 – 4 M AY 2 0 2 0 1 0 A M - 4 P M B L O M S T U L I P D I S P L AY A N D A D V I C E

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CRAFTSPEOPLE

Martin Young with the tools of his trade in his Lyme Regis workshop.

The Swing of Things When he built a new seat for his garden, Sitting Spiritually founder Martin Young had no idea that swinging chairs would soon become his new business WORDS VIVIENNE HAMBLY PHOTOGRAPHS CARL MANIGLIA

FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 101

CRAFTSPEOPLE

“A

re you sitting spiritually?” That is the question a friend of Martin Young asked one day when he saw him resting quietly on a garden swing seat.

Martin, who had been meditating, sprang into action on hearing this and, in a eureka moment, ran inside to register the new domain name of the business he had recently begun.

“I thought what a great name for a company – although some people assume we’re a Buddhist retreat!” Martin explains. That was in 2004. Since then, Sitting Spiritually has supplied rock stars and royalty with handmade wooden swing seats that are intended to be heirloom pieces handed down from one generation to the next.

The origins of the company are more down-toearth than its illustrious clientele suggests. Martin is a keen hobby gardener with an RHS certificate in horticulture, and he and his wife, Celia, had sought to open their Dorset garden for the National Garden Scheme. They were the subject of a television programme, Open Gardens, in which Carol Klein followed the fortunes of gardeners attempting to have their gardens accepted for NGS opening.

102 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

Above Carpenters Tom Oughton and Scott McCarthy have worked together at Sitting Spiritually since 2011.

When a county organiser declared their garden lacked seating and would need to be improved before it could open, Martin set to work. “I’d always wanted a swing seat,” he recalls, but the selection on offer at his local garden centre left him unsatisfied and he sent off for a blueprint of a traditional American design. He had trained as a carpenter and joiner, so he dusted off his tools and with a bit of help from his friends put the chair together in the garden, just in time for the NGS opening.

There could scarcely have been a better platform from which to promote his new piece, although Martin is very clear: “I didn’t build it to start a business; I built it to be able to open the garden.”

Nevertheless, the Youngs’ swing seats plugged a gap in the market. When they sold 26 pieces in 2005, Martin decided to leave his job and concentrate on making them full-time from his workshop at home near Lyme Regis. By 2006, 44 seats had passed through their books. “That was the point when I realised I needed some help,” he says.

If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a community to make a business. Three industries dominate the economy of rural Dorset close to

Lyme Regis: agriculture, tourism and building construction. Martin tapped his connections in the building industry to subcontract each new swingseat order to joiners already working in the area.

Today, five joiners are licensed to make Sitting Spiritually seats from their own local workshops, and clients may order customised pieces or fully bespoke seats created to fulfil the most individual desires. Bob Andrews, a friend of Martin’s for 30 years, ensures each carpenter knows which order to work on, and Neil Lancaster, husband of PR manager Siobhan, draws upon his experience as a tool maker to create the company’s best-selling traditional rope swings, which are licensed by the RHS and are large enough for adults to swing on.

According to Martin, orders are seasonal with spring and summer being the busiest times for the company. Over the past couple of years international orders have picked up, which has helped to even out the flow of work for the joiners. “We’re starting to

export to Australia and Japan and our first US order came from Florida in 2019,” he explains.

Designs for the Youngs’ seats and accessories come from many places and can begin with something a customer has sketched out themselves. These may then be used with permission and adjusted to make other seats. Some designs are influenced by the surrounding Dorset landscape: ammonites on the Jurassic coast are reflected in the top of a threelegged side table, or in the carved detail of a seat

Clockwise from top

Rope swings are made

by Neil Lancaster from his home workshop in Devon; round, seated rope swings are made from seasoned oak and can be personalised with an inscription; Neil Lancaster; the Pergola is designed for a climbing rose or honeysuckle.

FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 103

CRAFTSPEOPLE back. Specific wording can be carved into a seat, too, for anniversaries or births, or in memory of a treasured life. Some swing seats are self-supporting and come with their own wooden stands, others can be affixed to an existing structure or a substantial bough of a tree.

Celia and Martin’s daughter, Lucy, is an artist in her own right and often contributes to the creative process at Sitting Spiritually. Although there is no pressure on their children to take on the business when he and Celia retire, Martin admits it would be satisfying, were it to happen.

“I wouldn’t like the business to die with me. It’s not compulsory that they take it on but I’d like them to. I love it, I absolutely love it,” he says.

Although Martin has good relationships with local sawmills for the supply of certain products, most of the raw material comes from abroad, with each range being designed around a specific type of wood. By and large, trees in climates colder than the UK grow more slowly, making for a denser more enduring material. So, western red cedar from Canada is the material of choice for the Serenity range,

Right James Amato adds detail to one of the bespoke creations.

Below Martin and Celia Young started Sitting Spiritually in 2004.

Bottom The Harmony in painted pine is the first seat the company made.

a product sold under license to the RHS. “English red cedar grows a bit too fast and the knots tend to dry out,” Martin notes. Kiln-dried oak from eastern Germany, meanwhile, has formed the basis of the Tranquillity range for the past six years.

English sawmills are useful for supplying more idiosyncratic pieces, however, such as the Kyokusen swing seat, which relies on naturally curving logs for its distinctive shape. Martin chooses these from local mills and then leaves them for three years to air dry down to a workable moisture content. “They’re a sculpture as well as somewhere to sit,” he insists.

“I ask our customers not to buy it and put it away where it can’t be seen.”

“My favourite moment is always when people ask to come and see the seats in our show garden, or say they’re on the website and have a query,” adds Martin. If you run a business you have to take chances and not every chance comes out as a success.

We’ve never had any complaints, but if there’s a problem, we fix it. Whatever the situation, our policy is always to put things right.” ■ Tel: 01297 443084; sittingspiritually.co.uk 104 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

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Synonymous with snowdrops…

Single and double snowdrops, specialist varieties, snowflakes, aconites and wild garlic Freshly dug and dispatched ‘in the green’ February to April.

Visit the online shop www.cambogardens.org.uk Plant Heritage national collection of Galanthus

Cambo Snowdrops: Social Enterprise at Cambo Gardens The Stables Visitor Centre, Cambo Gardens, Kingsbarns KY16 8QD 01333 451040

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FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 105

BOOKS

The Reviewer

A selection of the best writing on the shelves this month

Mulberry

by Peter Coles Reaktion Books, £16

It is difficult to underestimate the influence of the mulberry tree on human history and how we arrived at where we are today. Mulberry bark cloth appears across the East and Southeast Asia; mulberry paper was developed by the Chinese; as the sole food of the silkworm, mulberries are behind all the silk produced in the world. Consider this last fact in view of the Silk Road and the inevitable exchange between East and West of cultural norms and new ideas, and it becomes clear that few plants have been as influential on human life as this modest tree.

Author Peter Coles, a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Urban and Community Research at Goldsmiths, is a consummate researcher and engaging writer in this addition to the series from Reaktion Books focusing on single, influential plants. Virgil and Horace, writing about mulberries and sericulture between 70 and 8 BC were Johnny-come latelys, considering the first indication of Chinese silkworm farming dates from 2,700 BC. By the time James I ordered, in 1607, 10,000 mulberry trees to be planted in England to start a silk industry, he was almost too late: France and Italy had got there first. Today, whispers of the prominence of mulberries in England’s past appear in unlikely places. These are the trees that have somehow escaped the axe over centuries, whether from Henry VIII intent on dissolving Catholic monasteries or modern developers demolishing Victorian schoolyards for blocks of flats.

On Flowers

WORDS VIVIENNE HAMBLY

by Amy Merrick Artisan, £27.99

If winter is becoming monotonous, On Flowers might bring relief. Travelling writer, stylist, and former New York florist Amy Merrick offers a celebration of all things floral, championing the exceptional and commonplace with equal enthusiasm. This is a richly illustrated work, part personal scrapbook and part primer, detailing, as she puts it, lessons from an accidental florist. Practical notes possess a sense of whimsy, with the suggestion of waking early to see a sunrise, smartening up supermarket flowers with paper and ribbon, or collecting beautiful vases, as well as a few more prosaic notes on such matters as making tied bunches. As such, On Flowers offers inspiration for a reader’s own creative forays in the warmer weather to come.

New Decorated Garden

by Elspeth Thompson & Melanie Eclare Cico, £12.99

Quieter days are the time to look to the growing seasons ahead and plan improvements, especially if there were aspects of the garden that were left wanting last year. New Decorated Garden, reissued here after its release in 2002, draws on work from Melanie Eclare and the late, well-loved garden writer Elspeth Thompson, known for her elan and advocacy of urban gardening from her small Brixton garden and allotment, in particular. This book offers an abundance of ideas on sprucing up a space: first select a style, then choose the elements that make it, from colour palettes to planters. Images show their age a little but the concepts are timeless and achievable. Handy both for first-time gardeners and old hands seeking different ideas.

FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 107

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Q&A

BOOKS

Fiona Thackeray unpicks the knotty problem of plastic in the garden in her new book Plastic-Free Gardening and offers advice on how we can overcome our reliance on it What’s wrong with plastic pots? Surely they can be recycled easily?

They can in theory – they’re mostly made from polypropylene, a plastic with a high reprocessing value. But the sensors at sorting facilities can’t read the recycling symbols on black plastic, preventing pots from being easily separated from other rubbish. Some local councils also reject materials contaminated with soil. But now garden centres are changing to pots in different coloured plastics with clear, easy to read recycling symbols. Pots are now being designed with recycling in mind from the outset, so it is going to be much easier to recycle garden plastics.

Of all the plastics we use in the garden, which are the simplest to cut back on? Where do you suggest we begin?

With so many issues affecting climate and environment, and so much plastic in the world, is worrying about plastic in the garden going to do any good?

INTERVIEW VIVIENNE HAMBLY

The scale of the problem can seem overwhelming and our own plots tiny and irrelevant by contrast.

But we’re a nation of garden lovers, millions of us spending a lot of time and money on gardening each year. If we each make one small change, there are so many of us that it all adds up to make a big difference. And the horticulture trade – a billionpound industry – is changing with us.

Probably pots. Most plastic pots in garden centres will soon be fully recyclable, if they aren’t already and many garden businesses are also starting to offer collecting points for pot recycling. You’ll also find cardboard pots for short term use, rice husk or vegetable starch options for medium term use and terracotta pots for more permanent planting.

Your research for this book is detailed. Were there things that you discovered along the way that were particularly disheartening?

The numbers that illustrate the scale of the problem were perhaps the most hard-hitting aspect. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch was designated as a state a few years ago to help bring home how huge the problem of ocean plastics is. At times you wonder if things have got too big to be turned around.

When did you start cutting back on plastic, and what motivated this?

And what did you find was encouraging?

I began very gradually a few years ago. What prompted me to try to do more was noticing the destructive effect of waste plastics in different environments – the classic plastic bag stuck in a tree in the park, for instance. Then, in Brazil, on a remote beach on the São Paulo coast, I found a loggerhead sea turtle being pecked by vultures. Despite bringing it to a rescue centre, it died later that night. The cause of death was plastic ingestion.

Quite a lot: discovering the many creative answers to the plastic waste problem, from substitute plastics made from seaweed to plastic-eating bacteria and moth larvae. It’s encouraging to see how quickly gardeners and garden businesses are responding to concerns about our over-reliance on plastics. We’re at a tipping point now and that means there are lots of options from new plant pot materials to revivals of forgotten old tools and techniques. ■

Plastic-Free Gardening

by Fiona Thackeray, Trellis Books, £11.99

FEBRUARY 2020 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 109

BESPOKE PROMOTION

GARDENS TO VISIT

Celebrate the start of spring by visiting one of the UK’s finest snowdrop gardens

CHIPPENHAM PARK

Chippenham, Ely, Cambs, CB7 5PT Tel: 01638 721416 | info@chippenhamparkevents.co.uk | www.chippenhamparkgardens.co.uk The 40-acre formal and woodland gardens set around a large lake and ancient canals, boast spectacular displays of snowdrops and aconites in February followed by a succession of hellebores, scillas, cyclamen, iris, deliciously scented daphnes and viburnums and a crescendo of daffodils. New RHS Partner Garden for 2020.

OPEN: Tearooms and Gardens open 8 February-22 March 10-4pm.

ROUSHAM HOUSE & GARDEN

Rousham, Bicester, Oxfordshire OX25 4QU Tel: 01869 347110 | www.rousham.org Rousham represents the first phase of English landscape design, and remains almost as William Kent left it, one of the few gardens of this date to have escaped alteration. Many features which delighted 18th century visitors to Rousham are still in situ, such as the ponds and cascades in Venus’s Vale, the Cold Bath and sevenarched Praeneste, Townsend’s Building, the Temple of the Mill, and, on the skyline, a sham ruin known as the ‘Eyecatcher’.

OPEN: Daily from 10am, last admission 4.30pm. No children under 15 and no dogs. Entry fee £8 per person.

WATERPERRY GARDENS

Waterperry, Near Wheatley, Oxfordshire OX33 1LA Tel: 01844 339226 | Email: office@waterperrygardens.co.uk | www.waterperrygardens.co.uk Celebrate Snowdrop Season and the first signs of spring! With 60 different snowdrop varieties carpeting the ornamental gardens over the season, come and enjoy a walk around the gardens to see these little heralds of spring in a magical setting (see website for more details). Waterperry Gardens – a place to explore, relax, and shop in beautiful surroundings all year round.

OPEN: 10am to 5pm Nov – Mar, 10am to 5.30pm Apr – Oct. Party bookings welcome by arrangement.

PAINSHILL

Portsmouth Road, Cobham, Surrey KT11 1JE Tel: 01932 868113 | www.painshill.co.uk The aesthetic landscape garden Painshill, in Cobham, was designed as a living canvas. It is a series of stunning vistas and dramatic follies. Take a walk through a work of art and enjoy the Serpentine Lake, woodland, a vineyard as well as an incredible Crystal Grotto. Bring along a picnic or visit the Tea Room to complete your day.

OPEN: April to October 10am to 6pm; November to March 10am to 4pm.

CERNEY HOUSE GARDENS WINTER SNOWDROP & HELLEBORE TRAIL North Cerney Cirencester GL7 7BX Tel: 01285 831300 | email: janet@cerneygardens.com | www.cerneygardens.com

Cerney House Gardens is a romantic English garden for all seasons. There is a beautiful secluded Victorian walled garden which is filled with herbaceous borders and overflowing plants. We open our doors again at the end of January for the arrival of our fabulous winter display of snowdrops and hellebores. A snowdrop trail guides you around our woodland packed with drifts of snowdrops. Enjoy Cerney House Garden’s charm and its combination of informality and tranquility. Tea, coffee and cake available OPEN: from Saturday 25 January 2020 10am-5pm. For more details: www.cerneygardens.com

RODMARTON MANOR

Rodmarton, Cirencester, Gloucestershire GL7 6PF Tel: 01285 841442 | email: enquiries@rodmarton-manor.co.uk | www.rodmarton-manor.co.uk Snowdrops feature strongly at Rodmarton Manor where there are at least 150 different varieties, some small, some huge, with many different markings – some yellow and some green – and many rare ones. They flower from October to March with the main display in January and February.

They are joined by other winter flowers such as crocus, hellebores, cyclamen, aconites. In the event of hard frost or snow it is advisable to telephone before visiting.

OPEN: Please see our website for details.

OUR GUIDE TO THE BEST OF BRITISH NURSERIES DAISY CLOUGH NURSERIES LTD

SPRING REACH NURSERY Spring Reach Nursery grows a fantastic range of clematis, trees, hedging, ferns, shrubs, fruit, perennials, roses, climbers and grasses.

A busy nursery in rural Lancashire, Daisy Clough specialises in a carefully selected range of over 700 perennials and grasses.

Open seven days a week, the nursery also offers a good selection of shrubs, trees, container plants and fruit. Plenty of homegrown vegetable plants are available through spring and summer.

A full plant list is available to view on the website. There is a beautiful shop selling garden sundries and homeware and a fabulous new tearoom to round off your visit.

Stars of early winter include Daphne ‘Perfume Princess’, Euphorbia characias ‘Tasmanian Tiger’, Libertia ‘Taupo Blaze’, Leucothoe ‘Scarletta’, Phormium ‘Firebird’ and Nandina ‘Fire Power’.

Tel: 01524 793104 info@daisyclough.com | www.daisyclough.com Daisy Clough Nurseries Ltd, Station Lane, Scorton, Preston, Lancs PR3 1AN

Tel: 01483 284769 info@springreachnursery.co.uk | www.springreachnursery.co.uk Spring Reach Nursery, Long Reach, Ockham, Surrey GU23 6PG

ASHWOOD NURSERIES

TENDERCARE NURSERIES A traditional working nursery situated in the West Midlands. We specialise in Hellebores, Hardy Cyclamen, Salvias, Hepaticas, Hydrangeas, Lewisias, Dwarf Conifers, Snowdrops, Primula auriculas and offer many more choice plants.

We feel Ashwood Nurseries is a plantsman’s paradise.

Our mail order service sends plants, garden essentials and gifts to mainland UK. Special hellebore events throughout February, please visit our website for dates and bookings. Open daily. Free colour brochure quote ENGGAR20

Book a visit to our awardwinning Nursery where our experienced horticulturists will help you pick the best choices for your budget and garden conditions.

We deliver and plant with an Establishment Warranty. See our website for our Plant Advice Services.

Last chance to buy an Ex-Display HSP Garden Room installed ready for Spring – up to 40% off.

Tel: 01384 401996 mailorder@ashwoodnurseries.com | www.ashwoodnurseries.com Ashwood Lower Lane, Kingswinford, West Midlands DY6 0AE

Tel: 01895 837120 sales@tendercare.co.uk | www.tendercare.co.uk.

Southlands Road, Denham UB9 4HD. Next to Junction 2 on the M40.

WEASDALE NURSERIES

HEDGING UK Weasdale Nurseries have been growing hardy trees and shrubs on their site at 850ft elevation in the Howgill Fells, at the heart of beautiful Cumbria, since 1950.

Specialising in mail-order from the outset, our careful packaging system has become legendary and guarantees safe arrival of the delicate contents anywhere in the UK. Contact us for your free copy of our highly readable, illustrated catalogue, listing over 900 different plants available from November to April.

Tel: 015396 23246 sales@weasdale.com | www.weasdale.com Newbiggin on Lune, Kirkby Stephen, Cumbria CA17 4LX

Hedging UK are specialist growers of quality hedging plants.

Plants are available to purchase at wholesale prices across the UK through our mail order service.

Buy direct from the grower, delivered direct to your door.

Readers of The English Garden get a 5% discount (quote TEG2020).

Tel: 01704 827224 or 07789 922457 sales@hedginguk.com | www.hedginguk.com Boundary House Farm, Holmeswood Road, Holmeswood, Lancashire L40 1UA

Shop with us

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT US AT

WWW.THEENGLISHGARDEN.CO.UK

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THE HEDGING SPECIALISTS 112 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

Visit us at www.theenglishgarden.co.uk

Next issue

O S 29 A N JA L N UA E

IMAGES JOE WAINWRIGHT; BENNET SMITH; CLIVE NICHOLS

Spring bulbs and blossom • Lord Michael Heseltine’s magnolia collection at Thenford • Daffodils flower at Humbie Dean near East Lothian’s Lammermuir Hills • Bulbs and spring blooms at Parsonage Oasts in Kent • Blossom brings the trees and shrubs of Shropshire’s Hodnet Hall to life • The National Trust’s secret plant propagation headquarters PLUS Commissioning bespoke accessories for the garden; early-flowering iris; Rodney Davey’s marbled hellebores; our new ‘grow your own’ series from Babington House

Don’t miss out. Buy single copies or subscribe now at theenglishgarden.co.uk

01858 438854

RY

LAST WORD

The Fresh Start

T

his winter I have finally, to use an appropriately horticultural metaphor, grasped the nettle. We have just finished digging up and burning 150 metres of beloved box parterre: 1,000 plants of Buxus suffruticosa, made from cuttings no bigger than the top joint of my thumb 30 years ago when I first arrived at Morville, wrenched out and tossed on the bonfire.

The box parterre was the glory of the garden: fresh, green and shapely no matter the weather or time of year; partnered with tulips and hyacinths in spring, orange trees and roses in summer and obelisks of yew and standards of holly all year round. But we had been fighting a losing battle with box blight. For many years we had a couple of pockets of Volutella blight, caused by Pseudonectria buxi – a disfigurement, but not as serious as box blight itself (caused by Cylindrocladium buxicola), which started to rampage through the garden two years ago. Both forms of blight cause discolouration of the leaves followed by leaf and twig death, but Cylindrocladium buxicola is more aggressive, spreading rapidly and leading to total defoliation.

Box blight in itself is no longer an automatic death sentence. You can find very sound advice about living with it on the RHS website, which includes

114 THE ENGLISH GARDEN FEBRUARY 2020

The box parterre was the glory of the garden: fresh green and shapely”

the fact that the blight does not kill the roots, so in extremis you can cut hedges and topiary right down and let them rejuvenate. Hygiene and stress reduction are key: reduce clipping to a minimum; let plants grow larger and looser to improve air circulation; rigorously remove all clippings and fallen leaves; disinfect tools when cutting; and feed, mulch and spray once a month in the growing season, using one of the newly licensed chemicals that can control (though not cure) the disease.

We did all this. But ultimately the stresses wrought by climate change in the last couple of years – drought, heatwaves, torrential rain, sodden soil – were against us.

Yet still I hesitated to dig it out. There was so much emotional capital invested in those plants. And there was also the problem of a replacement. Substitutes with small evergreen leaves that can be clipped into low hedges include Ilex crenata, Lonicera nitida, Osmanthus delavayi, and dwarf forms of hebe, berberis and pittosporum. Yew clipped hard works well, but my garden is surrounded by yew hedges and I needed a contrast. I was initially attracted by Sarcococca confusa, with dark glossy evergreen leaves and tiny, white, scented flowers in midwinter, but it is a shade-lover and I gathered it would bleach in strong sunlight as is apparently the case with Ilex crenata.

An added complication is that the parterre at Morville is a recreation of an early 18th-century garden, in which the finished hedges should ideally be no more than 15cm high. That ruled out Lonicera nitida, for example, as too fast growing. I finally plumped for Euonymus japonicus ‘Green Spire’: slow-growing, upright and dense, with small, dark-green leaves and vivid, bright-green new growth.

At the end of the first day’s work, Michael, who helps me in the garden, came and took me by the hand (I had been hiding in the house, averting my eyes).

“Come and look,” he said. “It’s not as bad as you think.” He was right. In my efforts to repel the blight, I had allowed the old hedges to grow too big, swelling out of shape. Now the original proportions were restored. It wasn’t a tragedy after all. I rather think it may be a triumph. ■

ILLUSTRATION JULIA RIGBY PORTRAIT BEVERLEY FRY

Having lost the battle against box blight, Katherine Swift is forced to rethink her beloved parterre. To her delight, the new planting restores her original vision

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